WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 281 



dehydrated powdered navel cord which the mother had stored for this 

 purpose. Sometimes a specific medicinal decoction for intestinal dis- 

 turbances is given, such as is given to adults, but greatly diluted. A 

 baby that is sick because of teething has its gums treated (cf. p. 276). 

 Until recent years a ceremonial known as machitun (pp. 323-324) was 

 performed over a critically sick child. 



When a child cuts itself, or is otherwise injured, a sympathetic 

 adult may perform the katawe (p. 272) on his own hand to help 

 the child to endure its pain. Not infrequently remedies applied to 

 adults for such purposes are also applied to children (cf. p. 326). 



COLOR BLINDNESS, LEFT-HANDEDNESS, SPEECH DEFECTS 



No Araucanian was known to be color blind. "Certainly everybody 

 can recognize all the colors." Both men and women were known who 

 were left-handed. "I have seen men use a hammer or an ax with the 

 left hand, as I do with the right hand. Occasionally you see a woman 

 hold the scissors with her left hand when cutting, as other women do 

 with the right hand." 



No informant knew of a mute or a deaf child, or a stutterer; one 

 person, hard of hearing since babyhood, was mentioned. "I know that 

 there are Argentine children like that. But I certainly never had any 

 fears that one of my children would not be able to hear or speak, and 

 speak well." 



ADOPTIONS, CAPTIVES 



Children were not formally adopted, but it was not unusual for a 

 child, especially an orphaned one or one from a broken home, to be 

 reared by its grandparents or some other close relative. During my 

 observations an 80-year-old woman was rearing the child of a son 

 because its mother was "so stupid that she was not even capable of 

 doing her own washing." The old woman was also rearing an illegiti- 

 mate son of the same woman, a feebleminded 14-year-old boy; the 

 woman's son would not tolerate the boy in his house. 



As previously stated (p. 265), it was believed that adults who 

 spoke of small children, especially babies, could expect someone in 

 the kinship group to bring them a child to rear, most likely a grand- 

 child. 



Araucanians took Argentines as captives and were themselves taken 

 as captives. This occurred during the years when the Argentine Gov- 

 ernment, through its army, was conquering the lands occupied and 

 claimed by the Araucanians. An informant whose father was an 



