MAKING GUANACO SKIN ROBES. 269 



begins when the guanaco commence to drop their young, and con- 

 tinues until the latter reach an average age of about two months. As this 

 season approaches, the Tehuelches move in small companies of a half 

 dozen toldos each, to their favorite hunting grounds, where guanaco are 

 known to be especially abundant. A permanent camp is established in 

 some favored spot and a relentless war is at once begun upon the young 

 guanaco in the vicinity and kept up until they have all been killed or 

 attain to an age which renders their hides unserviceable to the 

 Tehuelches. The work of killing and skinning is done by the men, 

 while the drying, dressing and further care of the hides fall to the 

 women. 



When the young guanaco is killed, the hide is very carefully removed, 

 even the legs, neck and head being carefully skinned out. While still 

 green they are partially fleshed and dressed. After this they are staked 

 out and thoroughly dried. When dry, they are taken in hand by the old 

 women and thoroughly dressed with sharp, curved, stone or glass scrapers 

 fastened in a bit of wood or horn. The old woman on the right in Fig. 

 41 has been thus engaged. The pile of lint and the skin stretched over 

 the surface of a flat stone are shown in the figure. Next, if the mantle 

 or other article is to be ornamented, the skin is again staked out on the 

 ground, and, without any previously made pattern to go by, she proceeds to 

 paint the flesh side in any one of several different patterns. One of these 

 is shown in the retouched photograph reproduced in Fig. 42. In painting 

 these skins, variously colored mineral earths are used. These are usually 

 of green, yellow and red colors and are mixed with grease and rolled into 

 rather slender pencils. From the ends of these, moistened with spittle 

 from the mouth, the various colors are transferred directly to the skins in 

 such manner as often to form most intricate and not entirely inartistic pat- 

 terns. When a sufficient number of skins, usually eleven or thirteen, have 

 been thus dressed and painted, they are trimmed so that the neck of one 

 fits nicely between the hind legs of the one in front and the skin of the 

 fore and hind legs between the legs on either side of the adjoining skins. 

 These skins are fitted and sewed with such skill that, when completed, there 

 is hot the slightest wrinkle anywhere in the entire mantle and the patterns 

 painted on the different skins match as nicely as do those of the paper on 

 the walls of a well-papered room. The really marvellous thing about the 

 whole fabrication is that the artisan works without any visible pattern to go 



