All the villages in Chile are similar in appearance and general aspect.
There is little variety and few attractive features to distinguish
any of them, or one from another. The one story houses are almost
invariably built of adobe, and roofed with tile or thatch. The
architecture, if the style of the village buildings can be dignified
with the term, is Spanish. The houses front directly upon and are flush
with the sidewalk, most of them being built round a patio.
There is an unattractive sameness about Chilean villages, even to
the disagreeable smells. There is usually one long, straight street
upon which are located the shops and better class of dwellings. This
main thoroughfare is backed by a few other streets, flanked with low,
rambling huts, the habitations of the poorer classes. In the center
of the town is the plaza, the chief feature of every Spanish-American
municipality, large or small,--the common meeting place of the village
people and playground for the children. Ornamented with trees and
flowers, it forms a pleasing contrast to the dull gray of dusty streets
and adobe walls. In the more pretentious of the municipalities,
the plaza is frequently enlivened in the evenings with music by a
band, which never fails to attract a crowd. On such occasions the
plaza presents a scene of lively interest and animation. There the
people congregate to visit, gossip and enjoy the music. Black-eyed
señoritas and stout matrons, with faces framed in mantillas, join in
the promenade, passing and repassing the caballeros with whom they
exchange knowing looks and significant glances, the method employed in
love-making and conducting flirtations in Chile. Upon the green sward,
beneath the friendly trees, happy children engage in juvenile sports
and youthful pleasures. It is in these public meeting places that the
village people are seen at their best; there they abandon themselves to
the simple pleasures and enjoyments to which their environments limit
them.
A curious feature of every Chilean village is the varied and violent
colors used in painting the houses. Shades of blue, red, yellow, pink
and green frequently appear in strange contrast in the same row of
buildings. Intermingling with these peculiarly contrasting hues are red
tile roofs, the lighter shades of thatch, and the gray of undecorated
adobe walls, relieved by occasional stretches of whitewashed houses and
garden enclosures.
The little “despachos,” with their inartistically decorated windows
and curious assortment of bottles of “chicha,” wine, “aguardiente,”
dry goods, provisions, firewood and charcoal, are a feature of every
town in the country. In the front of these shops where articles of
various kinds are dispensed, is a sort of hitch-rack which may be used
as a place for customers to leave their horses when on business, or as
a means of engaging in the common sport of the country, “topiadura.”
It is in the village drinking places that the country people meet
to exchange news and gossip of the neighborhood, and to indulge
in a social cup. On feast days and Sundays crowds congregate in
these places where drinking is indulged in to excess. There are few
places of amusement, and perhaps no place where the opportunities
for entertainment of an intellectual or elevating character are more
limited and restricted than in a Chilean village. The despachos with
their gambling, drinking and accompanying vices, afford the only relief
from the monotonous home life of the poor people, which has little in
it to encourage mental or moral improvement.
The population of the villages varies from three to five thousand in
the departmental centers, and from one to two thousand each in the
others. They have no industries except a few shoe shops, blacksmith
and carpenter shops. Some of the general stores have well assorted
stocks, and in some of the small towns there is a drug store with a
billiard room and cafe. These together with the drinking places fill
the commercial list. The business of the villages depends entirely upon
the people living in the adjacent farming country. When in the towns
they spend their time in eating, drinking, talking politics, singing,
dancing and playing cards.
The crops of the adjoining farms do not enter into the business of
the towns and villages, but are shipped to the nearest mill, railway
center or seaport. In all the towns there is wealth, not extensive, but
considerable, when the necessities and modes of life are taken into
account. In Chile, as in other countries, there is a predisposition
on the part of the country people to congregate in the towns and
villages, be they great or small; in close proximity to any of the
municipalities, any day in the week, one will meet all classes and
conditions of rural residents on horseback, in ox carts and on foot,
wending their way to town. It is another evidence of the universal
desire of mankind to seek companionship and association with his fellow
man, even though the contact furnishes no novelty or new sensation.
Every village has a Catholic church, and the female portion of the
population finds relief in the “iglesia,” from the monotony of domestic
life. They attend every service, and on Sundays and feast days the
scene about the village church suggests a convent, as the women all
wear mantillas draped over their heads, giving them the general
appearance of nuns.