l66 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I33 



in height, with windows and a door, is erected over a grave, a custom 

 borrowed from Chileans. (PL 33, i and 2.) The first grave house in 

 Alepue area was erected over a wealthy Araucanian man's grave about 

 1927; others soon followed suit. 



Formerly each grave had a marker (chemamul), a tall wooden post 

 with a crudely carved face or faces near the upper end. Non-Arau- 

 canians in all areas had seen them. I saw one in the Coiiaripe cemetery 

 (pi. 33, j) . Today nearly every grave has a cross at the head end. 



THE ETERNAL ABODE 



The abode of the departed was said to be in the volcanoes, that is, 

 in the pillaii. A soul began its journey there directly after death. 

 "It took a soul about 8 days to go to pillafi ; it takes that long today to 

 go to heaven. No, I never heard anyone say that a soul hovered 

 around after death." 



Most informants had vague knowledge, if any, regarding life after 

 death. "All I know is that we said the souls went there, but how a soul 

 gets there, I have never heard anyone say. I have always heard it 

 said that a soul went immediately to pillaii after death, and stayed 

 there." 



Occasionally a spirit — not a soul (informants differentiated but 

 could not explain the difference) — not only haunts the ruka in which 

 it lived and also the area about it, but also does annoying things, such 

 as howling or moaning, or causing objects to make noises, and the 

 fire in the ruka to burst forth in flames. At dusk one evening, during 

 my visit, two boys, 9 and 10 years of age, were out searching for two 

 cows. While scanning the country from the top of a hill, they heard 

 moanings of a man as though he were in pain. The boys, frightened 

 at this, ran to a nearby ruka. Here a young man told them that it was 

 his father who was moaning ; that his father was still coming around 

 the outside of their ruka, but no longer did he come into the ruka; 

 that until recently he had persistently come inside the ruka at night, 

 howled there, and enkindled the fire. To end all this, they had burnt 

 down the ruka and had built this new one, and he only moaned outside 

 the new ruka. A neighbor was suspected of having caused the father's 

 death by putting poison in some bread offered him — bread fried in 

 grease. 



MOURNING 



In Cofiaripe and Panguipulli areas, immediately after the body was 

 removed from the ruka, one of the adults who had stayed behind to 

 guard the place built a fire a short distance from the ruka, while others 



