“Finally, the belle of the lot, having ornamented her head, breast, and arms to their fullest capacity, stepped in advance of the others, and, raising her dress as high as the knee, displayed to our astonished gaze a remarkably well-rounded piece of flesh and blood. Patting the calf with honest pride, and turning it about for our inspection, she hung it round with beads, adjusted the many-colored anklets, and, snapping her fingers contemptuously, poured out a perfect torrent of Mapuché.
“Unfortunately, there was no one near to interpret this language; but from her action, and the frequent repetition of the name ‘Chancay,’ we gathered her meaning to be pretty much that, in whatever else the wives of Chancay might excel, she would defy them or any one else to produce a finer leg than the one in question.”
The dress of the children is simple enough. As long as they are infants, and not able to walk, they are tightly rolled up in bandages, so as to be unable to move. In this helpless condition they are put into bamboo cradles, and hung up on pegs driven into the walls of the house, or laid in baskets suspended from the roof, so that they can be swung about by a cord tied to the cradle. The infants are perfect models of behavior, never crying, and allowing themselves to be hung on pegs without betraying any signs of life, except the movement of the eyes. As soon as they can walk, they are allowed to run about without the incumbrance of any clothing, which is not worn until they become boys and girls of seven or eight years old.
The architecture of the Araucanians is very simple, but differs slightly according to the district, and the position of the owner of the house. The ordinary house of a common man is a mere hut, built of wicker-work, about twelve feet by ten, carelessly made, and ill calculated to withstand the elements. On a wet day the rain pours into the hut on all sides, a circumstance which has its advantages to counterbalance its discomforts. On rainy days all cooking has to be done within the house, which would be absolutely unbearable if the apertures which let the rain in did not let the smoke out. At night, moreover, these huts are overcrowded with sleepers.
In one of these huts there were three rude bedsteads, for the accommodation of two married couples and a pair of grown-up girls, while on the ground lay sixteen or seventeen young men and children, packed together like herrings in a barrel. Moreover, a whole troop of dogs came sneaking into the house as soon as the inmates closed their eyes; so that within this limited space some thirty living beings were contained during the night. It is evident that, if the hut had been weather-proof, the whole party would have been suffocated before the morning.
A better kind of habitation, visited by Mr. Smith, deserved the name of house. It was rectangular instead of rounded, and measured thirty feet in length by fifteen in breadth. In the middle of the roof was a hole, by way of chimney, the fire being made directly beneath it. There was no window, the hole and the door being the only apertures for the admission of light and air.
There was only one room, though a sort of loft was made in the roof. This was used as a storehouse, where sacks of beans and similar luxuries were kept. As might be supposed, the whole upper part of the house was thickly encrusted with soot. One of the corners was partitioned off with a sort of wicker-work wall, and served as a granary, in which the wheat was stored.
From the sooty, cobwebbed rafters hung bunches of maize, pumpkins, joints of meat, nets full of potatoes, strings of capsicum pods, and similar articles; while earthenware pots, dishes, and spears were scattered in profusion over the floor. In the middle of all these articles hung two long lances, with their points toward the door; but, although their heads were protected by being stuck into lumps of fat, they were rusty, and had evidently been long out of use.
Two of the corners were occupied with the ordinary bedstead of the country, i. e. a framework of cane, with a bull’s hide stretched tightly over it; and near the beds hung the stock of finery belonging to the owner, namely, spurs, stirrups, and bits, all of solid silver, belonging to the men, and breastpins, necklaces, earrings, strings of thimbles, and other adornments of the women. The usual basket cradle, containing a swathed baby, was suspended from one of the rafters.
The house of a cacique, or chief, is very much larger than either of those which have been described, and somewhat resembles the “long house” of Borneo. One of these houses, belonging to a cacique named Ayllal, looked at a distance something between a very long boat and a haystack. Its height was about fifteen feet, its width thirty, and its length about one hundred and forty.