198 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I33 



back to a landing on the Pacific from which a boat was to sail 

 for Valdivia and was in need of fare money. His grandmother had 

 woven this lama, and a pack of others that he was taking to Valdivia 

 to sell. He thought this one of the prettiest, for his grandmother 

 had used only natural dyes in it ; the others she had dyed with com- 

 mercial dyes. HI did not buy it, he said, he would leave it with the 

 captain of the boat to guarantee his fare until his return trip when he 

 would have money. He had no choapino to sell. 



Choapino, because of their bright colors and interesting designs, 

 are favored by purchasers. Weavers, however, find them costly arti- 

 cles to produce — bright-colored dyes must be bought in Chilean stores, 

 and, also, much wool is required to make one. An Alepiie woman 

 commented, while figuring out the price she should ask for a choapino, 

 "Last year [1945] we were paid 25 pesos for a kilo of wool in San 

 Jose de Mariquina. It takes the price of many kilos of wool to buy 

 the dyes that Chileans want us to use when we weave for them. My 

 husband bought me these dyes recently [about a heaping tablespoonf ul 

 each of red, green, and black]. He paid 15 pesos for each [50 cents in 

 U. S. money]. I shall use these dyes when dyeing wool for choapino, 

 and shall probably make little profit when I sell them. I dyed the 

 wool for the choapino that I made yesterday in bark and roots that 

 I collected in the woods. These, of course, cost us nothing, but those 

 Chileans want brighter colors than bark and roots produce." A 

 Panguipulli woman said with determination, "I will make no more 

 choapino. It takes much wool to make one; consequently, the cost 

 rises, and no one wants to buy them. A poncho is quickly made, and 

 persons are willing to pay a good price for one. So I make ponchos." 



In the spring, when food supplies stored from the previous harvest 

 are sometimes low, or have given out entirely, men, both old and 

 young, go to the wooded areas, fell trees, and haul them for sale to 

 lumber camps. In every area a few young women augment the family's 

 cash income by working as domestics in Chilean homes. Men occa- 

 sionally hire out at harvest time. An occasional one obtains cash for 

 hides of trapped skunks which he sells to Chileans. 



Money is occasionally borrowed from Chilean firms with mortgages 

 for the loan being placed on oxen, land, or cattle — preferably on oxen. 

 In Alepue area both land and oxen were mortgaged for loans made 

 either from firms known as Caja de Ahorros (savings banks) located 

 at San Jose de Mariquina and Valdivia, or from private persons. 

 Periodically men come from the banks to brand with their own brand 

 the horns of oxen or cattle on which they hold a mortgage. Occa- 



