WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 195 



they are available. (Pis. 39, j; 40, 2.) Sometimes a man makes his 

 own oxcart; just as often he has it made by another for "one must 

 have both intelligence and implements with which to make them." 

 In all areas, most oxcart wheels were made of cross sections of tree 

 trunks. A Conaripe man, who made his own cart used cross sections 

 of laurel comun. "The radius of the tree," he noted, "will tell how 

 high the cart will stand above the ground. It is important to note this, 

 for the middle of the cart is balanced on the wheels. One must think 

 of those deep ruts in the trails on rainy days ; everything on the cart 

 can get muddy if the wheels are too low; and the haul can spill out 

 if the cart is dragged along on its axle. It took me two days to make 

 the two wheels." Each wheel was 31 inches in diameter and 6 inches 

 wide ; the hub was 8 inches in diameter. The length of his entire cart 

 was 16 feet ; its greatest width, near the back end, 4 feet. Parts were 

 fastened together with voqui of coihiie (koiwe) ; no nails were used. 

 Two long pieces of wood, to which boards forming the platform of 

 the cart were fastened, extended forward and formed the shaft. When 

 hitching the oxen to a cart, their horns are fastened to the shaft with 

 leather straps ; the yoke is then fastened close to the end of the shaft 

 (pi. 39, i). Since oxen will follow an oxcart trail, the driver usually 

 sits in the cart urging slow-moving oxen on by poking their sides 

 with a pole. Off the trail, however, the driver leads the oxen by 

 walking in front, holding a pole, one end of which he rests on the 

 yoke. (PI. 39, 2 and 5.) If he wishes the oxen to turn right, he taps 

 the yoke on the right with the pole; if to the left, on the left of 

 the yoke. 



A log is hitched with chains or leather thongs to the yoke of a pair 

 of oxen and thus dragged to its destination between the oxen (pi. 



39,^)- 



Cooper's sources (1946, pp. 712-713) report three chief types of 

 water craft : the plank boat, the dugout, and the balsa. All were more 

 or less crescent or new-moon shaped, with raised and pointed bow 

 and stern. Plank boats were lashed together with fiber rope (of 

 Chusquea sp.) and caulked with leaves of tiaca and the inner bark 

 of maqui. Dugouts were paddled, or driven by sails when the wind 

 was favorable. Balsas were cigar-shaped bundles of various kinds of 

 reeds, lashed with ropes made of voqui. Other balsas, very light and 

 buoyant, apparently rafts proper, were made of Puya sp., Lihocedrus 

 chilensis (cipres), or Laurelia aromatica (laurel comiin). All three 

 types of water craft were seen during the present study, but none was 

 crescent shaped. The plank boat with sails, called fote (probably 

 adapted from the Spanish bote), was used in Alepue area when fishing 



