WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 1 39 



insisted that no in-law taboos ever existed among them. "Those are 

 not our customs ; they are not now, and never were." 



According to Coiiaripe informants the mother-in-law and son-in-law 

 were not allowed to speak to each other after the marriage ceremonial ; 

 neither were the father-in-law and daughter-in-law. "These could 

 all talk to each other freely for the last time at the marriage feast." 

 The father-in-law-daughter-in-law taboo, however, was not so severe 

 as the mother-in-law-son-in-law taboo. "A father-in-law will speak 

 to his daughter-in-law and she with him, but with a certain degree of 

 reserve; I know my wife talks that way to my father. It would be 

 difficult if they could not speak together at all, for a man takes his 

 wife to his father's ruka and they live there until he builds his own ; 

 a man never lives in his mother-in-law's ruka," A listening-in woman 

 interjected, "The father-in-law bought the woman for his son. He, 

 therefore, certainly has a right to talk to her ; even to command her," 

 "Whenever I went to the ruka of my parents-in-law, my mother-in-law 

 did not leave the ruka — after all there was no place else for her to go — 

 but I could not talk to her. If I had anything to transact with her, I 

 had one of her sons or her daughter do the talking. But I really 

 seldom have anything to talk about with my mother-in-law." 



A 60-year-old Conaripe area woman told of a screen of quila that 

 a woman erected near her fireplace so as to have a place behind which 

 to sit during her son-in-law's visits: "The mother-in-law does not 

 look at him ; she does not want to look at him ; it embarrasses her to 

 do so. She has erected for herself a row of quila stocks near the 

 fireplace, that is, near the place where she customarily sits. Here she 

 sits when her son-in-law visits her ruka. If other visitors come, she 

 sits there too, but at the edge of the screen, from where she can visit." 

 She added, with much emphasis and some anger, "It is a shocking 

 thing to see a Chilean mother-in-law shake hands with her son-in-law. 

 There is no respect in the world today !" 



No reason for the custom of in-law taboos was known "unless it 

 was that these persons had great respect for each other. But, in 

 general, it has always been our custom for men to talk to men and 

 women to women." 



An occasional man or woman of the present generation pays no 

 attention to these taboos. "There seems no sense in them," said a 

 30-year-old woman. "Certainly, my husband talks to my mother." 

 She herself talked to her father-in-law in my presence. 



Joking relationships were probably not institutional. Persons with 

 whom one might joke were not necessarily persons with whom one was 

 expected to joke. It seems more likely that certain relatives were ex- 



