114 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I33 



the machi, learning from him shamanistic skills, knowledge of the 

 curative properties of plants, and other health restorative measures. 

 Three nights preceding the inception of these formal instructions, 

 the machi and candidate meet in secret sessions ; this is the period of 

 initiation. At dawn after the third night the machi gives the candidate 

 his name and then all relatives of the candidate are invited to the 

 initiation ceremony in conjunction with which a festive meal is served. 

 Not all relatives join in the feast, however, because always it happens 

 that one of those who attends or assists must die; this keeps some 

 away. The candidate's father and brothers help to supply food and 

 drink, including mudai. It is during this initiation ceremony that the 

 rewe (pi. 30, 2) is used. No rewe was seen in the field ; some old 

 informants had not seen one in their lifetime. One in the Casa de 

 Araucania in the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santiago 

 consists of five steps and a top platform. At the end of the years of 

 instructions, "the new machi is given to the people." The most re- 

 cently trained one in Panguipulli area had been presented to the 

 people in 1936; she was then in her early twenties and had studied 

 under a machi since her early childhood. "They slaughtered an ani- 

 mal and gave a feast. Over the new machi they raised a bow festooned 

 with flowers and all around her were baskets of flowers." 



A Hst of shamanistic skills or powers (piilb) was written down 

 by an old Panguipulli man. He explained the first on his list, that is, 

 licure iiiyam foro, to mean inflamed bone. "When using it," he con- 

 tinued, "the machi begs to find the location of sickness in a bone or 

 tooth, or who knows what," and then added rather impatiently that 

 the machi speaks to his invisible power in each piilb to get informa- 

 tion regarding the sickness which he is curing, and "this is enough 

 about the piilb of the machi ; let us go on to something else !" He 

 pushed his list toward the writer and sat by, mute. Additional names 

 he had written down, the meanings of which he was not willing to 

 give, were neculpillan, yiuallmawida, licure malloldo, picumdo llaqca- 

 curaltje, kulilpillaii, pillandomo, pillafi wentru and kallfiipallomeii, 

 antuwapinda, fiuikonmei iillcha, fiuikonmei weche, iiiimaillawen. (The 

 last 10 are also found in Felix Jose, 1916, vol. i, pp. 9, 64, 75, 98, 

 159, 181.) 



It is believed that each machi can obtain or develop new skills from 

 some invisible source in addition to those learned during the years 

 of instructions. It is known that skills are enhanced by exchange of 

 information between machi. "My mother-in-law told me that years 

 ago 10 machi women met every year at a stream near Queule to ex- 

 change knowledge each had regarding herbs. Each beat her kultruq ; 



