Have you ever seen a man with pictures on his body? Perhaps you have
seen a sailor with a picture of a ship on his arm. In Patagonia nearly
all the men and boys have pictures on their bodies. Patagonia is in
the southern part of the world. It is winter in that country when it
is summer here, and summer there when it is winter here.
Patagonia is a very flat country. There are very few hills and no
large trees or fine flowers there. But there is plenty of good grass,
which sometimes grows very tall.
The people in Patagonia are Indians. They have red-brown skin, long
black hair, and small eyes. The men are very tall. Some of them are
seven feet high. They paint their faces red and black, and tattoo
their arms. They do this with a needle. They put the needle into dye,
and then prick the skin with it.
The men wear a piece of cloth around their waists and a large cloak of
fur. They sometimes wear boots made of the skin of horses' legs. The
women wear gowns fastened at the neck with a pin. They also have
cloaks like the men.
[Illustration: Patagonians at Home.]
The boys and girls wear no clothes until they are four years old.
After they are four years old they wear the same kind of clothes their
fathers and mothers wear. The young girls wear their hair in braids.
If their hair is not long enough, they make it longer by tying
horsehair to it.
The houses in Patagonia are tents made of skins. There are rooms in
the tents, and each grown-up person has a room. The fire is made
inside the tent on the floor.
The people in Patagonia eat gua-na-co and ostrich meat. Some of the
people drink a kind of tea made from the leaves of a plant. The leaves
are first crushed fine, then put into water. They drink this tea
through a small tube with many holes in it. The holes are so small
that the pieces of leaves cannot come through. This tea is very good
to drink. It makes the people very strong.
[Illustration: Guanaco.]
The women do all the work about the house. They make the clothes,
carry home the wood for the fire, and bring water from the streams or
wells.
The men do nothing but hunt. They hunt the guanaco and the ostrich.
The guanaco is nearly as large as a cow, and has a head like a camel.
Its flesh is good to eat, and the people make cloaks of its skin.
[Illustration: Hunting Ostriches.]
The ostrich is the largest bird in the world. Its legs are very long,
and it has a long neck. It cannot fly, for its wings are too small,
but it can run very fast. It can run faster than a horse. It is hard
for the hunter to catch it. He rides on horseback, and catches the
ostrich with a bo'las. A bolas is a rope with a stone, a metal ball,
or a lump of hard clay fastened to each end. The hunter swings one end
of the bolas round and round his head, and then hurls it with great
force at the ostrich. It strikes the ostrich or catches it by the legs
and throws it down. Then the hunter runs up and kills the ostrich with
a knife. The hunters also hunt the ostrich with dogs. Sometimes an
ostrich will spring suddenly up from the long grass almost in front of
the hunter and his dogs. Then the dogs can easily catch it.
The ostrich makes a hole in the ground under a bush for its eggs. This
is its nest. The eggs are very large, and they are good to eat. Its
flesh is also good to eat. Of course you know ostrich feathers are
pretty for ladies' hats. The feathers for hats are taken from the tail
and from the ends of the wings. But the feathers of the ostrich in
Patagonia are not so fine and pretty as the feathers of the ostrich
found in Africa.
There is an animal in Patagonia called the puma. It is like a cat, but
it is much stronger. Often it kills and eats the guanaco.
[Illustration: Pumas.]
The boys and girls in Patagonia have very few toys, but they are merry
and happy. As the boys grow up, they soon learn to hunt; and then they
go out with their fathers to hunt the guanaco and the ostrich.