328 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I33 



unbeknown to the Argentines. The true wife knew about the other 

 one, and sometimes when she got angry, she threatened to tell the 

 Argentines about her." 



CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE, MARRIAGE PROHIBITIONS, PREFERENTIAL 

 MARRIAGES, SORORATE, LEVIRATE 



Cross-cousin marriages were not institutional. When Kolupan 

 comprehended the relationship of cross-cousins and parallel cousins, 

 he said with much emphasis : "Those persons that you talk about had 

 great respect for each other, among us. They would never have been 

 allowed to marry each other ; least of all would my children have 

 been allowed to marry my brother's children — of all children those 

 had the greatest respect for each other. It was expected among us 

 that a man look for a wife in a family well known to his parents, one 

 that lived under the same cacique. It did happen that a person under 

 one cacique wanted to marry a person under another cacique, but 

 [speaking with much animation] when a man of one cacique asked for 

 a girl in a family under another cacique, it took many, many, many 

 words to get her." 



All informants were agreed that preferential marriages were those 

 between persons in the jurisdiction of the same cacique; in fact, this 

 was the proper marriage. Marriage with a non-Araucanian was toler- 

 ated but not favored, and the non-Araucanian partner was disliked. 

 Even a Chilean Araucanian mate did not have the same status as an 

 Argentine Araucanian, according to my observations. Intermarriage 

 with neighboring tribes or with Guarani, Quechua, and Aymara, even 

 in days of intimate trade, was exceedingly rare, according to persons 

 acquainted with the literature of early travelers in the Araucanian 

 country. 



Informants had not heard of the levirate or sororate, or of a sib 

 system. According to Kolupan, a widow never married again. He 

 added, "It is not that way today !" 



AGE OF PARTNERS, CHOICE OF MATES, LOVE CHARMS 



In general, in the early days, women were older than 25 when 

 spoken for in marriage ; men at their first marriage were usually in 

 their thirties. "Formerly, both men and women were expected to have 

 sense before they married." Several men were known to have married 

 a last wife when 80 years or older. Parents complained to me that 

 their teen-age daughters were marrying young men not much older 



