284 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I33 



Argentine army. "Every man was given a Christian name then, and 

 the officers made him use his Araucanian name as a second name." 

 A child was given the father's "second" name (Araucanian given 

 name) as its surname when its birth was recorded. All adult men 

 were very recently required by Argentine law to obtain from public 

 officials a Libreta Enrolamiento ; adult women, a Libreta Civica (cf. 

 p. 352), that is, a permit to vote at federal elections. Anyone who did 

 not have a surname when applying for the permit was given his 

 father's Araucanian name by the government officials issuing the 

 voting permits. (Cf. List of Informants for present-day names.) 

 Children were not nicknamed; adults were. Anyone could nick- 

 name another. A nickname pointed out an unenviable quality pos- 

 sessed by the bearer, and was used only "when we were speaking 

 among ourselves ; not everyone knew everybody else's nickname." 

 Examples of nicknames of men, friends of an informant, were: 

 Black Hide, Liar, Black Belly, Bewildered Head, Wild Horse (he 

 who was running to other women), Poncho of Tin (a lazy man). 

 Women, too, were nicknamed. "There were always senseless women. 

 If a woman was a prostitute, she was given a name because she was 

 that way." 



THE FAMILY 



STATUS IN THE COMMUNITY 



In general, the family that conformed to established law and order, 

 followed the accepted pattern of behavior, and maintained its eco- 

 nomic independence was respected. Families thought of as quite below 

 the accepted norm were those in which one parent was non-Arau- 

 canian, or in which a parent habitually drank to intoxication, or in 

 which there was an unmarried mother. 



HUSBAND-WIFE RELATIONSHIP, PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP, 

 BROTHER-SISTER RELATIONSHIP 



The man dominated the family, but his wife and children had a 

 status of importance and individuality within the family. If there was 

 no resistance to the man's expressed authority, the household was 

 usually a well-ordered and peaceful one. "Formerly families were 

 like one ; they wanted no disorder ; everyone had to do his duty." 



In general husband and wife lived together in peace and content- 

 ment. In cases of polygynous marriages, the wife first married — 

 usually also the oldest one in years — gave orders to the others. She 

 was exempted from such work as cooking and washing; the other 



