WHOLE VOL. 



ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 



215 



Formerly, according to a Panguipulli man older than 70 years, 

 chicha was made in a kettle-shaped vessel of leather (trakal, fig. 5)- 

 At the open end, the leather was fastened to a rim of avellano wood 

 by means of vines. The vessel was propped up by three or four poles, 

 with one end of each pole poked under the rim and the other end 

 planted in the ground. 



In the early days, mudai, a fermented drink made of various grams, 

 was the family beverage. Old women chewed the grain, usually un- 

 cooked dried corn, spat it into an olla, poured water on this, and let 

 it ferment. The fermented liquid was poured off and drunk. Today, 

 mudai is drunk only at the riillatun, machitun, and konchatun. Women 

 prepare both the mudai and the chicha. 



Formerly two meals a day were eaten : one, a full meal, was taken 

 as soon as it was prepared, which was usually in the late forenoon. 



Fig s —Trakal, a vessel of leather propped on sticks and used in chicha making. 

 (Sketch made by Domingo Huenum of Panguipulli.) 



and another, a partial one, about bedtime, which was any time "be- 

 tween dusk and the time people usually get hungry." 



Rising time for the family, today, as formerly, is the cock's crow. 

 Often, therefore, everyone is up before sunrise. The woman, with 

 the help of an older girl or even small children, sets about preparing 

 a meal— "a meal like we always have had." One of the children will 

 stir up the fire and keep it refueled, for a large fire has to be main- 

 tained so that there will be ashes for baking the tortillas. The mother, 

 or an older girl, prepares the dough for the tortillas and then bakes 

 them. "Other dishes, too, must be prepared. We usually have meat 

 with tortillas and also either toasted wheat or catuto, and yerba mate. 

 When we have no tortillas, we bake potatoes in ashes. That takes 

 time, too." On the day of an interview, a Conaripe woman had given 

 her family as its main meal tortillas, soup thickened with wheat, roast 

 lamb, catuto, and yerba mate. Men were encountered who had hoed 

 potatoes or cut grain for several hours without having eaten anything. 

 The women were preparing the meal, they would say. The evening 

 meal usually consisted of left-overs from the main meal. 



