102 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 33 



Another competitive game played with tops is called juego al gallo 

 (play of the rooster). Four boys, ii and 12 years of age, paired up 

 to oppose each other in playing it. They drew three parallel lines two 

 meters apart. On the middle line they placed a peso. Each boy now 

 took turns, sides alternating. The player spun his top, slid his hand 

 under it, and dashed the top still spinning, onto the peso. If the top 

 sent the peso onto or beyond either of the other lines, a point was 

 scored for his side. If the peso got beyond either of these two lines, 

 it was brought back by hand to the nearest line. The next boy in 

 dashing his top onto the peso had to send the peso to or across the 

 middle line. Always the peso had to be sent two meters distance in 

 order to count. No definite number of successes completed a game. 

 After playing 15 minutes, one side had four counts and the other, 

 three. 



Boys II to 15 years of age also play a competitive game with 

 marbles, called jugar de los bochitas (to play at little holes). Two 

 or four boys play the game. Each boy has one marble. Most marbles 

 used by boys I observed were made of clay found in the area — "my 

 mother let me have the clay she had left after she made oUas" ; several 

 boys used perfectly round stones for which they had searched the 

 beach of the Pacific ; a few boys had a factory-made marble. The 

 objective of the game is to land the marble in the farthest of three 

 holes, made in a row, i^ meters apart, by a boy rotating on his heel. 

 Each boy in turn shot his marble by hand. Once the marble landed 

 in the farthest hole, the player could return by landing his marble in 

 the middle hole and then the hole nearest the starting point. A player 

 was permitted to shoot another player's marble away from a hole 

 provided his marble landed within a handstretch of the competitive 

 player's marble. The boy who returned his marble to the starting point 

 first won the game. 



Alepue schoolboys 9 and 10 years old played the competitive 

 Chilean game of futbal as best they could. Five boys opposed six. 

 The goal of each team was a line between a sapling in the school yard 

 and a 3-yard-long stick planted by the boys. Their ball was made of 

 cochayuyo, a Pacific Ocean alga. Whenever the umpire announced 

 that a ball had passed the goal, there was much clapping of hands by 

 the winning side. It was a signal, too, for all boys to drop on the 

 grass to relax. 



Until recently, boys in Alepue area played a competitive game with 

 quoits known as rai huela ; today, it is generally played only by young 

 men and older ones, and is played for stakes. A non-Araucanian 

 teacher explained: "When I came here, 10 years ago, quoits were 



