164 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, I33 



horseback galloped about such a procession until its arrival at the 

 cemetery. Upon arriving at the cemetery a grave is dug by relatives — 

 "it has always been a custom that relatives do so" — and the trolof is 

 placed in it. Formerly the grave was so shallow that the top of the 

 trolof showed above the ground. Today all burials are beneath the 

 surface of the earth. 



If the deceased was a man, his saddled horse — the horse that had 

 been tied near his ruka during the wake — was led to the place of 

 burial, behind the body of the man. At the burial place the saddle 

 was laid on the trolof, the horse strangled, then stabbed, its blood 

 caught and poured on the trolof, and its hide stripped off and laid 

 aside to be placed over the burial. The meat was then divided among 

 all those present. Next a sheep was strangled and laid alongside the 

 trolof. "The spirit of the man needs these things for his travels. We 

 do not believe this now, but we did believe it formerly. I saw all 

 this done," said a 52-year-old Conaripe man. His 76-year-old relative, 

 a collaborator, added, "I have seen it done many times, here and 

 elsewhere. That was one of our customs. One seldom sees it done 

 now." If the deceased was a cacique, his horse was killed, and its 

 blood poured into the trolof and not over it. The legs of the horse 

 were also cut ofif and put into the trolof. Unless the entire animal was 

 buried with the cacique, as sometimes happened, only relatives ate 

 the meat of the horse. An attempt at killing a horse was made 

 (1939) at the burial of the 12-year-old-boy. As soon as his grave had 

 been dug the lower half of the trolof was lowered into the grave, 

 then the boy's body, and next the cover of the trolof. Lassos were 

 used to do the lowering. Relatives were about to strangle the boy's 

 horse when one of the most respected Araucanians and a Chilean 

 friend of his stepped forward and objected, saying that it was cruel to 

 strangle an animal, and that certainly today such a custom should no 

 longer be carried out; that if the horse were strangled, authorities 

 would be notified. The horse was not killed. It was intended that one- 

 half of the horse be buried with the boy and the other half divided 

 among persons present. 



According to Cooper's sources (1946, p. 735) horses were killed 

 over the grave of a man as early as the second half of the eighteenth 

 century, and, at least for more prominent men, a horse skin was hung 

 up at the grave over a transverse pole resting on two forked poles. 

 Also, according to Cooper, the trolof of a cacique was sometimes 

 raised ofif the ground, wedged in trees or placed on heavy forked posts. 

 Cooper found in his sources no ethnological or archeological evidence 

 of cremation of corpses, apart from the practice of burning the bodies 



