344 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 33 



always following one, someone died. Before my first wife died, I 

 dreamed that I was curled up with cramps, curled up like a newborn 

 baby is. That is the position she was in when she died." 



As an example that sensing the presence of a being omened death, 

 a woman in her middle sixties repeated what her mother had told her : 

 "A man was killed in a fight. After this his wife and baby lived alone 

 — the baby was so small that it was still being tied to its cradleboard. 

 They had no close neighbors. One night the spirit of the man came 

 into the house. His wife recognized the spirit immediately and was 

 frightened. The man squatted at the fireplace, ate, and drank chicha. 

 The woman became more and more frightened as she watched him 

 eat. She crawled backward to the wall of her house. When he finished 

 eating he kissed the baby and vanished. Two days later the baby died." 



A woman in her eighties often felt someone pulling at the hem of 

 her skirt. "I believe it is my deceased husband who does so. Once 

 I heard three raps which I discovered later meant to tell me that my 

 daughter would die ; she died soon after this. My sister once heard 

 loud sobbing but saw no one. Following this, she saw footprints of a 

 very small child around the fireplace. Later a relative died." 



Both Araucanians and non-Araucanians believed that machi who 

 were also sorcerers caused slow death by poisoning. The wife of a 

 non-Araucanian estancia owner told the following (in 1951) : "About 

 six weeks ago one of our most faithful and intelligent Araucanian 

 workmen asked for time off to go home ; his brother was sick, he said. 

 After several days he returned, very sad. His brother, he said, would 

 die. Would we let him have lumber to make a coffin? 'Your brother 

 may get well again,' I said. 'Why make a coffin before he has died? 

 As long as he is alive, you must hope that he will recover.' He listened 

 and then said, sadly, 'No, he will die. The machi treated him and 

 said that he cannot live.' My husband and I and other non-Arauca- 

 nians often said that the machi gives the sick person poison which 

 will bring on a slow death; without fail, today, after the machitun 

 has been made over a sick person, the person lives but a short time." 



DEATH, WAKE, BURIAL, MOURNING 



Formerly, when death was imminent, relatives came to the dying 

 person's home, where they were fed and housed until after the burial. 

 This tradition, to which has been added that of burning candles, is 

 still carried out in Quilaquina and Trumpul. "This is often a hard- 

 ship today, for it means slaughtering several large animals, of which 

 we have too few as it is." 



