3l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I33 



open near there. A machi went into the opening and cut down something. While 

 she was doing so, a big snake turned up. She caught the snake and killed it. 

 Doing this made a noise like a powerful explosion [he imitated steam being 

 blown off]. Soon the lake disappeared; all that is left of it today is the river 

 between Lake Lacar and Lake Pirehueico. Just about that same time, the vol- 

 canoes fought each other — those that are about 40 kilometers from here. Yes, 

 they actually fought each other. One had his head cut oflf. In the area where 

 his head fell, all rivers changed their courses — those are the rivers that come off 

 the mountains. Since then these rivers flow through Chile and no longer through 

 our country. One volcano has no head today; you can see it in Chile; it is 

 Shoshuenco. In the fight, stones piled up on one side of Shoshuenco so that 

 today Shoshuenco looks as though he had a hat hanging down his side. 



Smoking was done as a pastime by most men older than 30 years 

 and by an occasional man after his twentieth year. Formerly if a man 

 younger than 20 smoked, he made certain that he was not in his 

 father's presence; "today, a boy of 15 will smoke sitting close to his 

 father." Women seldom smoked before they were 60 years of age. 

 Children did not smoke. "It would have been difficult for children 

 to do so, for they were always where adults were ; in any event, they 

 had no material to smoke." Older men smoked ceremonially at the 

 qillatun ; women never did. 



In the early days, a mixture of finely cut stalk of maqui and dead 

 wood of rauli, or a mixture of crushed leaves of both, was smoked. 

 Tobacco was introduced with government rations. Kolupan, finding 

 tobacco too strong to smoke, mixed it with maqui, cutting both up 

 fine. One woman mixed her ration of tobacco with dry dead wood 

 of rauli to make it last longer. It appears that in the very early days 

 a substance in the form of plugs and sticks was brought in trade 

 from west of the Andes, cut fine, and smoked. Old informants had 

 been told about this by older people. The substance was smoked only 

 at bedtime since it had a narcotic effect. Any substance smoked was 

 called p9trem; the word kinnickinnick was not known to informants; 

 Kolupan found it an amusing word. All smokers inhaled the smoke. 



Pipes were made by women, generally of the same clay used in 

 pottery making (cf. pp. 380-381) ; very old men were seen smoking 

 pipes of stone. A pipe consisted of a bowl and short stem of the 

 same material, and a hollowed-out colihiie stalk inserted into the end 

 of the stem. The mouth end was somewhat flattened. Pipes varied in 

 size and structure (pi. 76, 5). Those of caciques and old men were 

 often ornamented with silver. Since women made the pipes, they 

 sometimes decorated their own with silver, also. Today Argentine- 

 made cigarettes are smoked — one of them is passed from person to 

 person in a group, everyone but children taking a puff. 



