WHOLE VOL, ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER I43 



The belief in a guardian spirit, such as is found among the Chip- 

 pewa (Hilger, 1951, pp. 44-48) and the Arapaho (1952, pp. 124-134), 

 is not part of the Araucanian culture. 



MALIGNANT SPIRITS, THEIR ABODE 



The belief in malignant spirits is pre-Christian, but the belief in a 

 place of punishment for wrongdoing is probably of recent origin. 

 Evil spirits are called wekufii — "wekufu are beings something like the 

 devils in your religion." "The Mapuche have great fear of wekufu," 

 said a non-Araucanian. "The first missionaries used to tell of this 

 fear." Quoting an Alepue man : "If a whirlwind comes near a ruka 

 in the daytime, or if there is a noise outside the ruka at night, several 

 persons, never one alone, will go out with firebrands and flourish these 

 toward the noise, and say, 'Wekufii, return to where your house is' 

 [informant said this in Araucanian]. If it is not wekufu himself that 

 is there, it must be the restless spirit of a deceased person that is 

 molesting the place." 



According to a Panguipulli woman, the flood (probably biblical) 

 was caused by a malignant spirit: "My mother told me that in very 

 early times the rivers overflowed, and there was a great flood. Within 

 the flooded area, a hill raised itself — they say tren tren raised it — and 

 upon it the people rescued themselves. They called this hill tren tren 

 in honor of the good spirit that had rescued them. The bad spirit that 

 caused the flood was called kaikaiwiilu." An old man listening in had 

 interjected, "Tren tren is a place where a child was offered when the 

 rivers and lakes rose to overflowing; it was believed that where the 

 blood of the child would flow land would appear." The informant 

 disagreed. "No, no ! No child was sacrificed. Not far from here in 

 the mountains [Andes] is the place where that land appeared, and it 

 is said to be tren tren. This story has been told from generation to 

 generation among the Mapuche. My grandmother never saw tren 

 tren, but I heard her tell this story." (Cf. Cooper, 1946, p. 753, for 

 other tren tren flood stories.) 



The abode of wekufii is not known. "It must be where people are," 

 reasoned the informant, "for it is people through whom wekufu 

 works. Some say that the wekufii are in pillaii; but they cannot be 

 there where the good people are. Maybe they are where they should 

 be — in kiitralmapu" (earth of fire, probably a word compounded to 

 be the equivalent of hellfire). According to schoolchildren the follow- 

 ing are in kiitralmapu : The kalku (there was a chorus of "los kalku" 

 from the children, even the youngest ones joining in when the ques- 



