154 



CHILDREN INDIAN DISPOSITION. 



unless the delinquent atones by some valuable gift. Some- 

 times, at the command of a wizard, a man orders his wife to go 

 to an appointed place, usually a wood, and abandon herself to 

 the first person she meets. Yet there are women who refuse to 

 comply with such orders.'' 



When it does happen that a man and his wife quarrel, the 

 woman is sometimes punished by having her two tails rather 

 savagely pulled. I have been told that the husband scarcely 

 ever beats her, except in the height of passion. 



Children are left to take care of themselves soon after 

 they can walk. With sets of little balls (bolas) they annoy the 

 dogs not a little, practising their future occupation. While very 

 young they climb upon old, or quiet, horses' backs. If a young 

 guanaco is caught and tamed, or a bird with its wings 

 clipped hops about the tolderia, the little ones have fine sport. 

 While infants are suckling, the mothers use frames or cradles 

 in which their charges are carried about : they are made of 

 flat pieces of wood, with a few semi-circular guards of lath, or 

 thin branches, whose ends are fixed into holes in the wood. In 

 such franiies, between pieces of guanaco skin, the babies are 

 placed; and while travelling, these cradles are hung at the 

 mothers' saddle-bows. The children are much indulged. 

 Falkner says, " The old people frequently change their ha- 

 bitations to humour the caprices of their children. If an 

 Indian, even a cacique, wish to change his abode, and the 

 tribe with whom he is living do not choose to part with him, it 

 is customary to take one of his children, and pretend such a 

 fondness for it, that they cannot part with the little favourite. 

 The father, fond of his child, and pleased that it is so much 

 liked, is induced to remain." / t ; 



Yet with all this apparent goodness of disposition, in moments 

 of passion, these Indians have been seen to be like other 

 savages, disgraced by the worst barbarity. Neither man, 

 woman, wife^, nor even a smiling innocent child, is safe from 

 that tiger in human shape — a savage in a rage. " Nunca, 

 nunca fiarse de los Indios," is a Spanish maxim, as well founded 

 as it is common. 



