WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 295 



also wore stickpins and hair ornaments. Men often decorated with 

 silver ornaments the handles of long knives, their saddles, stirrups, 

 and bridles. 



The only silver ornaments I saw were rings. Old informants said 

 that all silver things were confiscated by the Argentine army when 

 it overran the Araucanian lands. A man in his eighties noted that 

 many families owned a boxful of silver things then ; "boxes in those 

 days were so long and so high [3 by 2^ by 2^ feet], and were made 

 of hide. It got to the point that whenever word was passed that the 

 soldiers were again on their way to chase us to another place, every 

 family put all its silver things into an olla and buried it; the empty 

 boxes they left behind. Each man marked the buried place of his 

 family's olla in his own way. Every man could have found his own 

 again, but so many of our men were killed, or died before we got 

 back, that some ollas were never again found; much silver was lost. 

 I have heard people say that occasionally someone would see a streak 

 of light, like lightning, shoot up from a place in the earth and then 

 drop again. Those who saw this went to that place and found 

 buried there an olla with silver things. They kept what they found. 

 But I think that was stealing." 



Young Argentine men today tell of spending Sunday afternoons 

 and other leisure time looking for burial deposits of silver or digging 

 for silver things in old graves. They speak of these places as chenke 

 (Tehuelche word for burials). Because of a recent superstitious 

 belief that disturbing an old burial will bring death to the one doing 

 so within two years (something which happened to a man who robbed 

 a grave between San Martin de los Andes and Bariloche after Arau- 

 canians had foretold his death), fewer graves are being disturbed. In 

 1952 canal diggers on an estancia came upon graves that contained 

 silver ornaments. They looked at the ornaments but refrained from 

 handling them, shoveled them back into the graves, covered them with 

 dirt, and diverted the canal. 



MODESTY, COURTESY, HELPFULNESS, HOSPITALITY 



Modesty in women was highly respected and was taught to girls by 

 their mothers. Prostitutes were punished to the extent of being 

 hanged. 



An atmosphere of courtesy prevailed everywhere during the present 

 study ; it was especially noticeable where old persons were in control. 

 On one occasion an informant, with much concern, suggested to my 

 field assistant that she move into the shade, "for the sun in the moun- 



