l88 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I33 



slapped her, whereupon she retired to her corner. "That cat was not 

 trained right when she was a kitten," the mother explained. 



Horses, cattle, and sheep are grazed in the same pasture, unless 

 the owner has enough land to graze them separately. Grazing lands 

 are burnt-over lands along creeks, rivers, or lake shores. In Boroa 

 area care is exercised when a pasture is selected that it is free of cicuta 

 mayor, a poisonous plant found among the grass in the area. "It is 

 difficult now to find a pasture that does not have it; it has spread 

 everywhere. If horses eat much of it, they die." 



Areas set aside for grazing are fenced in ; so are wheat fields, potato 

 patches, and gardens (pi. i). Fences are of various kinds (pis. 36; 

 37, I and 2) : they may be saplings tied to posts with stout vine; they 

 may consist of rails that rest in openings cut into posts (pi. 36, 4) ; 

 or they may be split tree trunks either set close together in upright 

 position (pi. 2^, 2) or laid in such a way that animals cannot move 

 them or edge their way through them (pi. 36, 5). Horses, cattle, and 

 sheep are not placed under shelter at any time. Pigs are kept in en- 

 closures at the edge of running water, not too far from the ruka. 



Animals afflicted with hoof and mouth disease are made to drink a 

 decoction of huella, a plant collected on the shores of brooks where 

 there is fast-running water, "something we learnt from the Chileans." 

 For diarrhea, cattle are given a mixture of powdered leaves of centella 

 and powdered ashes of cochayuyo, "something we have always done. 

 I saw my father throw a ball of it into the mouth of a horse ; it cured 

 the horse," said a 12-year-old Alepue boy. 



Horses, cattle, and sheep are branded by the owner, or by another 

 Araucanian whom he asks to do so. Cattle and horses are branded 

 with the initials of the owner's given and family names; a piece of 

 glowing hot iron is used. Sheep are marked in the ear, with a notch 

 or hole or a similar mark. 



Since pumas often take sheep at night, the sheep are usually 

 corralled near the ruka toward evening, where the dogs are supposed 

 to protect them. However, if a dog is not ferocious enough to ward 

 off a puma, the sheep are put into an enclosure, 6 feet or more high, 

 built of stocks of quila, which are either set close together in upright 

 position or are built up, one above the other horizontally, and kept in 

 position by being bent over and under successive upright posts that 

 are set some distance apart (similar to the fence in pi. ^y, i). If a 

 puma persists in stealing sheep from such a corral, a second wall of 

 quila like the first is built around the enclosure, approximately 3 feet 

 away from it. "No puma is foolish enough to jump over two fences so 



