WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 24I 



The child is expected to creep when a year old; at 2 years it is 

 expected to walk. The child's first step, first walk, first laugh, and 

 first words are noted as progress in its development, but are not 

 celebrated as an event. Until proper toilet habits have been learned, 

 both boys and girls are dressed in skirtlike diapers and chamall ; after 

 that, in clothes patterned after those of adults. 



Nursing, zveaning. — While the mother is bathing, following de- 

 livery, one of the attending women who knows how, relieves the baby 

 of the phlegm in its throat. Upon the mother's return from her bath, 

 she nurses the baby, and does so thereafter whenever it cries. If the 

 mother has no milk flow, she drinks a mixture of extract of a root 

 and flowing water, and also washes her breasts with it. To increase 

 the milk flow, she eats large quantities of available foods, drinking 

 with them cold and warm water alternately. Today, an occasional 

 mother supplements an insufficient supply of her own milk by feeding 

 the baby commercially condensed milk mixed with water. 



A baby that cries for reasons other than hunger is thought to be 

 sick and remedial measures are resorted to; occasionally a machi is 

 asked to perform over it. A child is always nursed until it is a year 

 old ; seldom when older than two. 



A child is weaned by being given solid foods gradually and then 

 eventually being separated from its mother for several days. An 

 occasional child sucks its finger. 



Atypical conditions. — Twins were known to have been born to 

 Araucanians, but no other multiple births were known to have oc- 

 curred. Treatment of twins differed in different areas — from loving 

 them and treating them like other children, to killing one of them. 



Incest is a disgrace. It was not known to have occurred between 

 siblings, or between mother and son, but other rare instances were 

 spoken of. 



An unmarried pregnant woman loses the esteem of others, and her 

 family feels disgraced. Her parents, formerly, tried to force a mar- 

 riage with her paramour ; when unsuccessful in this, the woman was 

 generally sent from her home and usually delivered her child without 

 assistance. Occasionally an abortion is attempted ; in some instances, 

 it is known, the child was killed at birth. In general, however, the 

 child is cared for in the home of its mother where it is well treated 

 and not blamed or stigmatized. Not infrequently the mother takes it 

 with her when she marries. 



A child very rarely was, or is today, born deformed. Formerly, a 

 child so born or one born mentally deficient was killed. Sick children 

 are given small or diluted dosages of herbal decoctions. These failing 



