WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 177 



inherited land ; in those days when a man married, he and his wife 

 Hved with the man's parents until he had selected for himself a piece 

 of land from that which his father offered him or he had cleared a 

 piece for himself, at least partially, and thereby laid claim to it." 

 Today, according to Chilean law, both sons and daughters inherit land. 

 According to Chilean law, also, the ownership of land must be recorded 

 with Chilean officials. "Ours is not so recorded, neither mine nor my 

 wife's," said the above Conaripe informant. "But we are entitled to 

 land in this area, as I said, and no one can take this right from us— we 

 were born here. All Mapuche entitiled to land in this area were re- 

 corded with the old cacique, but not with the Chilean authorities. Since 

 the cacique's death, his son has the list." With a firm voice and de- 

 termined conviction he added : "No stranger can come in here, neither 

 Mapuche nor Chilean, and own land. A stranger can only cultivate 

 land on shares, that is, the Mapuche who owns a piece of land can let 

 the stranger plant it for the price of half the harvest, or for at least 

 a share of the harvest. Four years ago a Mapuche family came in 

 here from Calafquen and cultivated land in this way." 



In Cofiaripe area then (1947), because ownership of land is not re- 

 corded with the Chilean Government, owners of land had no Chilean 

 deed to their land ; in Alepue area, most men do have a deed. A 39- 

 year-old Alepue man told the manner of obtaining land in his area 

 and getting a deed to it. "If a Mapuche wishes to claim a piece of 

 land," he said, "he builds a ruka on it, clears some land around it and 

 uses it for fields and gardens. By the time he gets this done, he has 

 decided how many hectares he wants. He draws a plan showing 

 the location of the land and takes it to the Oficina de Tierra de Colono- 

 cion in Valdivia. This office will send a civil engineer to locate the land 

 and to make certain that it belongs to no one else. The Mapuche is 

 then given a deed to the land. There has been no difficulty with the 

 Chilean Government, up to now, about this." He went on, then, to tell 

 of the restrictions on clearing the land: "The greatest difficulty at 

 present is to get the land cleared. Without permission from the Ofi- 

 cina de Forestal in Valdivia, no one is allowed to burn down forests— 

 our way of clearing the land. Three years ago fires got out of control 

 because of the puelche [strong east wind] that came up unexpectedly 

 and spread over large tracts. Families were surrounded by lire and 

 could not be reached. The night was as light as daytime. Harvests 

 and pastures and cattle were burnt. In several places underground 

 fires continued to spread and burnt the roots of grass causing a dire 

 scarcity of grass the following winter. One Mapuche was herding 



