WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 165 



of warriors killed in battle far from home and transporting the ashes 

 back for burial. My informants had not heard of either practice. 



The burial of the 17-year-old Alepue youth (see p. 159) is prob- 

 ably a sample of burials in a plank box — an acculturated type of burial 

 more Chilean than Araucanian. Approximately 30 families, all but 

 six of those who had been expected, had come to the wake. The 

 informant, a relative of the deceased young man, named these and 

 added that the previous year a brother of the deceased had had a fist 

 fight with a man of one of the absent families ; everybody knew that 

 for that reason this particular family was not present ; but why the 

 other families had not attended, he did not know. Before the body 

 was removed from the ruka, it was laid into a coffin made of planks, 

 "like the Chileans make them," and into the coffin were placed a pair 

 of tennis shoes — "they had put his best shoes on him" — all washable 

 things and his poncho ; "in fact everything that had belonged to him 

 personally." His hat lay on his body, not on his head. No food was 

 put into the coffin. "Formerly we did that — we generally put in a 

 container with water or chicha, 12 small pieces of bread fried in 

 grease, and 2 portions of meat of the animal that was slaughtered for 

 the wake. In this case it would have been 2 pieces of this young man's 

 young cow, for that cow was slaughtered at the wake." 



Twenty men, one of them a brother of the deceased, walked to the 

 cemetery ; four of these carried the coffin on their shoulders ; four car- 

 ried a lighted candle each — one of those that had been burning near 

 the body during the wake; others carried the planks from which a 

 rough box was to be made at the grave. "We do not have a rough box 

 for every burial, but we did for this man." Upon arrival at the ceme- 

 tery, the brother of the young man pointed out the burial place and 

 the men set to work to dig the grave, taking turns digging. "Always 

 the grave is i^ meters deep." Two men made the rough box. The 

 coffin was placed into the rough box, the box lowered into the grave 

 by means of a lasso, dirt shoveled back into the grave, and then all 

 went home. The family, except the one brother, had stayed at home. 

 In Alepue area women and children seldom attend a burial; this is 

 not true of Panguipulli and Cofiaripe areas. "Most certainly do all 

 the women and children go to the burial," said a Conaripe woman; 

 "they usually leave their last tears there. If someone comes to the 

 ruka to comfort them later, however, tears may again flow." 



Today, a grave is overlaid with earth, and then, in Cofiaripe area, 

 with logs, or is surrounded by an oblong frame of upright boards and 

 the space within planted with flowers or merely allowed to be over- 

 grown with grass ; in Alepue area a gabled one-room house, 4 to 5 feet 



