WHOLE VOL, ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 221 



pelts were used if additional covering was needed. All sleep in day 

 clothes. "It is this that makes it so difficult for a school child that is 

 a bed wetter," noted a teacher. 



An Alepue man had heard his grandfather tell that formerly, in 

 rare instances, a man made for himself a mattress. He laid bunches of 

 grass parallel to each other and intertwined these with less coarse 

 grass. A few families today have factory-made mattresses, especially 

 if either parent of the family at one time worked in a Chilean home. 

 Feather pillows are not used; anyone wishing to sleep with head 

 elevated uses a rolled or folded poncho. A sick person was seen having 

 the head elevated on a piece of wood covered with a poncho. Cover- 

 ings are folded and laid aside when not in use. 



Low 4-legged stools, low benches, and log sections are used as seats. 

 Shelves, attached to walls or suspended from rafters, and a table 

 usually provide space for storing cooking and eating utensils, and 

 movable containers. If containers hold food, they are often suspended 

 in midair by means of voqui from tie beams or fire raft, or are hung 

 on pegs on walls or fire raft to keep their contents from animals, such 

 as cats and chickens. An Alepue woman had made a shelf (i8 inches 

 long and 8 inches wide) by intertwining colihiie sections of equal 

 length with voqui. 



According to Cooper's sources, grain and other food supplies were 

 stored in hill caves, on elevated platforms, and in hide sacks ; potatoes 

 were stored in bins within the hut (1946, p. 705). Today all storage 

 is within the ruka ; wheat is stored in bins, boxes, barrels, cloth sacks, 

 or lamb-skin sacks, and occasionally in the traditional storage place, 

 the canoa, a dugout tree trunk with closed ends. A canoa in use in 

 Cofiaripe area was approximately two single arm stretches in length. 

 Potatoes were seen being stored in boxes made of boards, in cloth 

 sacks received in trade from Chileans, and in lofts in the back of the 

 ruka. Lofts are made by placing planks on tie beams of rafters. 

 "Potatoes are always stored farthest away from the fire." 



Today, containers for storage, other than bins, barrels, boxes, canoa, 

 and sacks, are traditional baskets (kulko and chaiwe), netted bags of 

 various sizes (wilal), dried gourds, paunches and udders of cattle and 

 sheep, earthenware ollas and cantaros, wooden dishes, factory-made 

 porcelain, enamel, and galvanized dishes and pails. In some instances 

 a piece of cloth tied by opposite corners served as a container, also. 



CLOTHING 



A 70-year-old Panguipulli man listed the following as a complete 

 outfit of clothing for a man — and a boy as well — when he (the in- 



