WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 323 



from our orchard. Several days later he returned with two of them, 

 went to the house of one of our neighbors who had two daughters and 

 where he was well known, and offered an apple to each of the two girls. 

 One girl ate hers immediately, the other ate hers a little later — it was 

 this one the machi wished to marry. But the girl did not want to 

 marry him; her parents knew this. Without warning, the girl sud- 

 denly became insane. Her father told the cacique what had happened, 

 and said, 'You must help us.' The cacique sent for his own brother and 

 for the machi, and, in the presence of the brother and the girl's father, 

 said to the machi, 'You have done damage to this girl ; you want to 

 force her to marry you ; that is why you have done this to her.' But 

 the machi would not admit it. The cacique, his brother, and the father 

 of the girl then went to the Argentine military officers who were in 

 control of our area. The cacique had told the machi to appear there, 

 but he did not do so. While the three men were talking to the officers, 

 they noticed through a window that the machi was passing by. The 

 military officers ordered two soldiers to bring him in. Again the 

 machi denied that he had done any harm to the girl. The Argentine 

 colonel ordered a scissors to be brought and threatened to cut off the 

 machi's hair — he had long hair. But the machi kept saying, 'No, 

 sehor. No, senor.' Then they whipped him with 5 lashes; still he 

 denied it, then with 10, and still he denied it. They threatened 15 

 lashes, and then he admitted his guilt. The colonel ordered him to 

 remove immediately the damage he had inflicted on the girl. The 

 machi promised to do this, and accompanied by two soldiers started 

 out for the girl's home. Near a brook along the mountainside, he 

 asked the soldiers to halt. They did so. He plucked several handfuls 

 of grass that grew close to the water's edge and they walked on. When 

 they arrived at the girl's home, he asked for a clean plate. He crushed 

 the grass between the palms of his hands, squeezed out the juice, and 

 told the girl to swallow it. This was two months after he had done 

 her the damage. That girl vomited all the apple that she had eaten 

 two months before! After that she got well. Later, she told how, 

 during the period of insanity, she had run to the shores of Lake Lacar 

 and had jumped into and out of three fires there without being 

 harmed." 



physicians; the machitun 



The sick were treated by herbalists who were specialists and by 

 machi who were either both herbalists and sorcerers, or only sorcerers. 

 "It depended upon the type of sickness that a person had, as to who 

 was called in." Machi, however, are not respected by Argentines; 



