WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 343 



DEATH, AND BELIEF IN LIFE AFTER DEATH 

 CAUSES OF DEATH, OMENS OF DEATH 



Of the causes of death, sorcery is beHeved to be the chief one. 

 Always a person is the causative agent. Quilaquina informants sus- 

 pected an old man in the area of having brought sickness to some 

 persons and death to many. His activity was omened, but his method 

 of inflicting sickness or death was not known. Causes of death other 

 than sorcery were accident, violence, and poison secretly administered. 



Accounts of omens of death always included a being called chofi- 

 chon. The sounds of choiichofi are like the call of a bird in flight and 

 are heard only at night; consequently, chonchofi is spoken of as a 

 nocturnal bird. A non-Araucanian told the following regarding 

 choiichofi as an explanation of one cause of sickness and death: 

 "These Araucanians believe that a person can send his intelligence to 

 another person in the form of a bird to do harm to that person — in 

 most cases to cause death. The bird they call choiichoii. One morning 

 some years ago my Araucanian maid said, 'I am leaving. While in 

 the orchard last evening, I heard chonchofi say "Tua, tua, tua." Then 

 he flew past me and said "Sh-h-h-h-h." Death will most certainly 

 come to someone in this place. I am leaving.' " An Araucanian in her 

 late sixties had heard chonchofi say "Te, te, te, te." "Everyone," she 

 said, "takes notice when chonchofi is heard. One will say, 'What is 

 that? What is that?' 'Yes, what is it?' another will say. 'Yes, that 

 is it !' says still another. Recently, at a wake we heard 'Te, te, te, te' 

 over there, then over here, and then over there. No one seems to know 

 what it is that gives that call. But whoever sends choiichon intends 

 no good." 



An 80-year-old woman reasoned : "But maybe choiichofi is a spirit. 

 You can be sitting here, and suddenly you will hear him at your feet, 

 then over there [at the rafters], then outside. But you cannot see 

 him ; no one ever sees him. His sounds frighten people, for they know 

 that now someone will soon die." A listening-in man, in his thirties, 

 added, "I have heard chonchofi. He says 'Twi, twi, twi.' It is always 

 a total surprise when you hear him. I, too, have felt his presence at 

 my feet and on the ground close by." 



In addition to the calls of chofichoii, it is believed that death is 

 omened in dreams, and also by seeing a spirit or sensing its presence. 

 Kolupan's father had told him that dreams that forbode death in the 

 dreamer's family are those in which a knife is broken, or a cow, horse, 

 or ox dies. "I have never had dreams exactly like those that my 

 father told me about," he added, "but I have had similar ones ; and 



