350 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I33 



"I have never seen one like this ; this looks like a revolver ! I have 

 heard old people tell that formerly a cacique had in his house an 

 axlike implement that indicated to others he had authority. I have 

 forgotten its Araucanian name. But that was an ax; it was nothing 

 like this thing." An 85-year-old woman agreed with Kolupan, and 

 added that the axlike implement passed from a cacique, at his death, 

 to his heir. Toki, similar to the one shown on plate 74, 5, are exhibited 

 in the ]\Iuseo de La Plata and the Museo Nahuel Huapi, and there are 

 some in private collections in Argentina — these were found in very old 

 graves in Argentina. One was found by well diggers deep in the earth 

 in Pucon (Chile). These toki, except one in the Museo Nahuel Huapi, 

 are of dark ungrained stone; one (No. 471) in Museo Nahuel Huapi 

 is of granite. Araucanians believe that stone from which both types 

 of emblems were made can be found in places where lightning has 

 struck the earth. 



Informants recalled the days when the cacique wore a distinctive 

 earring, a large square one. One such earring in the collections of 

 Parque Nacional de Lanin is made of dark ungrained stone, similar 

 to that of the toki. 



Whenever a cacique and his lofche settled down, they set up their 

 toldos some distance apart, but always within sight of one another. 

 The cacique regulated the location of the toldos. (According to 

 Kolupan the army introduced the word toldo and called a settlement 

 of toldos a tolderia; the Araucanians called their dwellings ruka.) 

 Animals grazed far beyond the tolderia. An informant drew an ellipse 

 in the sand and explained, "Here [center] was the place for the ca- 

 cique's toldos — he usually had several wives, sometimes as many as 

 four or five, and each wife generally had a toldo. About here [one 

 end of the ellipse] lived the families of the men who were expected to 

 defend the people: those who had lances with arrowheads, and also 

 those who had boleodoras. Out here and here and here [along periph- 

 ery in scattered fashion] lived the other families. When we moved 

 into what is now San Martin de los Andes area, the cacique had his 

 toldos where the village of San Martin de los Andes is today, close 

 to the banks of Lake Lacar. The toldos of the men with the lances and 

 boleodoras were where the Argentine military post is today [on the out- 

 skirts of San Martin de los Andes] ; some of the remaining families 

 lived along both shores of Lake Lacar, but most of them lived in 

 the Vega Valle — the grazing lands were best there." 



Occasionally a lofche divided : the Kalf iikura were known to have 

 done so. Reumai, one of the sons of Kalfiikura, after the death of his 

 father went to Chile with some families of his father's lofche; his 



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