WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 379 



other dye. To bleach yarn white, the length of strands needed, "like 

 for a diamond-shaped design in a choapino," are measured off and 

 each wound around a leaf or small stick and stored away in mallo. 

 An 80-year-old woman had seen her mother-in-law bury yarn in a 

 few handfuls of mallo that she had put into a corner of a hewn-out 

 tree trunk. She had prepared two sticks of wood, "as thick as my 

 finger," one about so long that she had called wentru (man), and the 

 other so long, that she called domo (woman) (4 and 2^ inches, re- 

 spectively). Around each stick she wound one layer of yarn, very 

 tight and very close together. When the yarn was removed from the 

 mallo, it was pure white. "It always remained white. My mother-in- 

 law wanted it for a cross design in some weaving she was about to do." 



Table 10. — Colors obtained from native plants (Argentina) 



Color Plant Remarks 



Red (kelu) Relvun (Relbunium hypocarpium) 



Yerba vinagrillo (Oxalis acetosella) 

 Heart of roble (Nothofagus obliqiia) 

 Rose color (kallfu mora) . . . Roots of pimpinela (Acaena ovalifolia) 

 Coffee color to dark 



brown (muske kelu) Bark of roble 



Bark of nogal (Lomatia obliqua) 

 Boldo (Pemmis boldus) 



Gray (ka/ii) Nogal "Naica produces a 



Robu (unidentified) delicate shade of 



Roots of nalca {Gunner a scabra) gray." 



Yellow (choj) Bark and roots of michai (Berberis darwinii) 



Romerillo (Lomatia jerruginca) 

 Poquil (unidentified) 

 Chestnut color, like that 

 of guanaco wool 



(I'uan kal) Bark of roble 



Black Bark of nogal "If boiled a very, 



very long time." 



Sheep's wool is dyed after it has been made into yarn. It is boiled 

 in water containing the substance in which the dye is found. Darker 

 shades can be obtained by using more of the dye substance or by 

 longer boiling with less of the substance, boiling being timed to the 

 shade of the color desired. Informants had obtained dyes from barks 

 and roots listed in table 10. 



Formerly, no substances were known to dye blue, green, purple, or 

 orange. In recent years, commercial aniline dyes have been used for 

 these. Today, commercial dyes are used almost exclusively for all 

 colors. A woman explained: "I always fear being arrested by the 



