348 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I33 



lead in its performance. Another was to maintain and enforce order 

 in his lofche. It was within his rights to hang an ilHcit paramour ; the 

 parents of the girl concerned had the right to take the girl's life. If 

 a cacique's wife had an affair with another man, the cacique could 

 order the man hanged. 



The most common breach of order was stealing from another lofche. 

 An old man explained : "Formerly there was seldom any stealing 

 among the people who lived under the same cacique ; if there was, it 

 was brought to the attention of the cacique, and he ordered the stolen 

 thing returned. But it was not at all uncommon for the people under 

 one cacique to steal from those under another. When this happened 

 the caciques of the two lofche got together on the matter, and the 

 people expected that the thief would be made to return the stolen 

 thing. But I recall instances when nothing was done about it." 



A cacique also had the duty of leading his men in time of war. Re- 

 garding battles between lofche, Kolupan noted that many lofche had 

 lancers — that his father had fought under their cacique, Cheoketto, as 

 a lancer, and that there were usually several hundred lancers to each 

 formation. Lances were colihiie stalks tipped with arrowheads. Ar- 

 rowheads were made of red, black, or transparent white flint. The 

 white flint was thought "to have dropped from above." When lancers 

 noticed that the enemy was wearing clothes made of huemel pelts, 

 they aimed at the mouths of their opponents, as arrowheads could not 

 pierce huemel hides. Sometimes arrowheads on lances were poisoned, 

 a thing Cheoketto would not allow ; he would say that only despicable 

 people used them. Poisoned arrows could not be pulled from the 

 flesh, and they caused a slow death. 



Kolupan went on to tell that a cacique also led his men in attacks 

 on the Whites : "Sometimes a cacique and his men made an attack 

 on Argentine soldiers, killed some of them, and then fled immediately 

 into hiding in the Cordillera — our people lived on the pampa then. 

 The soldiers tried to find them ; but this proving futile, they returned 

 to their base. The cacique and his men then returned to their homes 

 on the pampa. Sometimes, however, the soldiers caught up with our 

 people, and there was a terrible massacre on both sides. Later the 

 Argentine cavalry came, and we had to submit ; we could not fight it. 

 From then on we have had to obey orders. I recall how the soldiers 

 sent us to cut wood for them — but they paid us for it. The soldiers 

 did not treat us too badly, but we were better off by far before the 

 White people came. We had our own way of living and our own rules 

 then. We had no written laws, but we had caciques, and they knew 

 the rules we did have." A listening-in woman in her eighties added, 



