MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE TEHUELCHES 91 



brings several vices in its train. Most noticeable is a craving for 

 strong waters, a weakness from which the younger women are 

 entirely free. 



The morality of the Tehuelches is, on the whole, admirable. 

 Unfaithfulness in the wife is rare, and not often bitterly revenged. 

 A point as regards the morality of the women is to my mind rather 

 luminous. While the younger chinas are unexceptionable in their 

 moral virtues, the older women cannot be so highly commended. 

 They are rather apt to wander from the stricter paths of decorum. 

 When the husband of one of these elderly houris dies, as soon as 

 the due period of mourning is past, the bereaved one will take up 

 with any male in her tribe for either a longer or a shorter period. 

 For ugliness sheer and unrivalled these grandmothers of the 

 tribes stand alone. Also, as they get on in years, these ladies 

 often run to fat. I remember one immense woman in the toldoson 

 the pampas between Lake Argentino and Gallegos, who had put 

 on jflesh in a manner and to an extent almost unbelievable. 



The younger women, while the flush of girlhood is still upon 

 them, possess a certain comeliness which I can only describe by 

 the adjectives "savage" and "stolid." Yet the abundant coarse black 

 hair hanging round the heavily quiet faces, in which the features, 

 though flattened, are still slightly aquiline, the wide-open, patient 

 eyes, the healthful colour, and the strong, white, even teeth, which 

 their slow smiles disclose to you, make them, on the whole, a 

 personable race. 



The half-bloods, as is usual, often possess real beauty, the 

 alien strain giving them that vivacity which the pure race seems 

 to lack. 



Some of the pictures show an unsightly slit of the lip in the 

 case of a few paisanos* This hare-lip is by no means universal, 

 but is an hereditary peculiarity that appears in many of the 

 members of one special household. The arrival of a stranger 

 in the camp makes the women retire shyly within themselves, 

 and it is only by chance — as it is in the case of wild animals— 



■■' This name is preferred by the Indians themselves. To call them los Indies is a 

 breach of etiquette. Paisano means, of course, son of the land, a title in which the 

 Teheulche takes pride. 



