372 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, I33 



children at mealtime and as a between-meal drink. It is also served to 

 visitors for hospitality's sake. In Argentina it is usually drunk 

 without sugar. 



THE TOLDO, PRESENT-DAY DWELLINGS, STORAGE 



The toldo, the early conventional dwelling of the Argentine Arau- 

 canians, was a collapsible, transportable tent of hides — informants 

 called it ruka, the Araucanian name for dwelling. An occasional 

 family lived under a rock shelter that had several walls of piled-up 

 stone, or in a cave where piled-up stones formed a wall at the opening. 

 During the season of favorable weather, families often lived under 

 large shade trees with no shelter except the dense foliage. Ruka, such 

 as the Chilean Araucanians built, namely, gable-roofed frameworks of 

 poles thatched with grass, did not exist in Argentina. "I know that 

 ruka, like our people in Chile still build, were the first kind of dwell- 

 ings our people had — that is, our ancestors in Chile had them ; but I 

 have never seen one on this side of the Cordillera," said Kolupan ; 

 "here we have always lived in trakle ruka [house of pelts], called 

 toldos." He went on to tell that the building of a toldo was a com- 

 munity affair. Men prepared the poles and helped the women in the 

 preparation of the hides. "Twenty to thirty persons got together to 

 build the trakle ruka," said Kolupan; "we did as they do in Chile 

 when they build a ruka. Sometimes several were built at one time." 

 At the completion of the work, an animal was slaughtered and a 

 copious meal with mudai was served, a celebration known as the 

 kawintun. When toldos had to be moved — as on occasions such as 

 transferring herds to new grazing grounds — the women collapsed the 

 toldos, rolled the hides on the toldo poles, and transported them on 

 pack horses. 



Toldos were of two kinds : an inverted-V type and a 4-walIed one 

 not unlike a lean-to, but having one gabled wall. Both consisted of a 

 framework of poles with a covering of hides. The inverted-V type was 

 erected when a dwelling was needed for only a short time, as when 

 hunting or during the days "when we were being chased by the mili- 

 tary from place to place." Its poles were tied together at the ridge 

 or bolstered against each other. Several V-type ones I saw were cov- 

 ered with tin in place of hides. They were being erected in mountain 

 valleys, also, where cattle were being taken for summer grazing. 



Kolupan described the erection of a gabled-end toldo. Nine poles 

 were needed: six of equal length, two noticeably longer than these, 

 and one longer than the last two. Nine holes were next made in the 



