l62 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 33 



too, was completely wrapped in a home-woven blanket and bound 

 about with a trariiwe. About his head, too, were eatables and clothing. 

 Persons, as they arrived to attend the wake, were offered food." Seen 

 lying alongside a body in PanguipuUi, were a knife, tortillas, toasted 

 wheat, and a pair of new shoes. 



At present a wake is generally of two nights' duration ; if longer, it 

 is because of a delay in obtaining a burial permit. The permit is 

 granted according to Chilean law by a Chilean officer when the death 

 is recorded. During the wake several persons — relatives or neigh- 

 bors — are always in the presence of the corpse. The Chilean custom 

 of burning candles continuously about the body, from death to burial, 

 is followed at all wakes ; so is that of placing flowers near the body — 

 fresh ones, if they are in season ; otherwise, those made of paper. At 

 intervals, alternately. Christian prayers are said in Spanish and tradi- 

 tional Araucanian ones in Araucanian. At intervals, too, food is 

 eaten while sitting about the corpse. In Alepue area tortillas or bread 

 and yerba mate are brought from home and eaten with meat supplied 

 by the deceased person's family ; in Conaripe area, all food is supplied 

 by the family of the deceased. The closest women relatives of the 

 deceased refrain from cooking during a wake. 



Immediately after the death of a man, his horse was saddled and 

 tied to a post at some distance from the ruka, but directly in line with 

 the entrance. In some instances this is done today. Each evening the 

 horse is unsaddled and allowed to roam, to be resaddled and tied to 

 the post again in the morning. On the day of burial the horse is shot 

 and parts of it are buried with the man — a procedure described below 



(p. 164). 



Burials today are in cemeteries. According to informants, burials 

 have always been in cemeteries — the one in use today in PanguipuUi 

 had been an Araucanian cemetery many years previous to the arrival 

 (1896) of the early missionaries in the area. According to Cooper's 

 sources (1946, p. 735) each family or lineage group had its own 

 burial ground in a grove or on a hill, not far from the dwellings. 



Coffins, in Coiiaripe area today, and, in many instances in Alepue 

 and PanguipuUi areas, also, are two halves of a hewn-out log, each 

 shaped like a dug-out canoe. Such a coffin is called trolof. "The 

 hollow in each half had to take care of half the body." Bodies not 

 buried in trolof are buried in boxes made of planks. Planks are car- 

 ried to the grave on the shoulders of men, at the time the body is 

 taken there for interment, and nailed together at the grave. Children, 

 including babies, are buried like adults — "it is a touching thing to see 

 the body of a baby taken off its cradle and laid into a trolof." 



