Vicente Perez found it an extremely difficult matter to fight this new

flood of landowners, and had no time to spend upon litigation; so,

philosophically, he adopted similar methods, and presently acquired

territory. But meanwhile provision had been made for the first arrivals

by the public spirit of Benjamin Viel, a French citizen of Valdivia, who

gave for their settlement the pretty Isla de la Teja which lies at the

confluence of the Calle-Calle and the Cruces rivers in front of Valdivia

City. Today the island is covered with prosperous businesses, most of

them carrying German names—breweries, a paper mill, two or three

shipbuilding yards.

[Illustration: Valdivia, a Flourishing New Southern City.]

[Illustration: Punta Arenas, the Southernmost City in the World.]

[Illustration: Puerto Varas, facing Calbuco Volcano, Lake Llanquihue.]

The agent then went to look for interior land for the next batches of

colonists, and, finding that forest country was unclaimed, started to

explore what was still virgin country to the white man. He lived on

honey and wild nuts, struggled through dense woodland to the edge of

Lake Llanquihue, chose his ground, and then gave his chief Indian scout,

the celebrated Pichi-Juan, thirty pesos to burn clearings through the

heart of the forest. It was this Indian who brought the first fifty yoke

of oxen to the borders of the Gulf of Reloncaví, driving them through

the jungle from Osorno and opening the first track.

Pichi-Juan took three months to burn a belt five leagues wide, and

fifteen leagues long, through the Osorno Valley, leaving isolated woods

to serve for house-material and fuel. Puerto Montt, at Melipillo, was

founded in February, 1853, among blackened stumps, and the new colony,

also of Germans, had two bad winters when the crops rotted in the

ground; but by 1861 had progressed so well that the town was made the

head of the province.

One hundred and five more settlers had come in 1852; another batch four

years later. By 1858 Puerto Montt was self-supporting, with cultivated

fields, flour mills, and was exporting brandy and honey, planks, tanned

leather and wheat flour. Between the foundation of the settlement and

1864, when immigration of German families ceased, 1363 people had

entered. Henceforth the opened territory received continual additions of

energetic people from many parts of the world, Chileans themselves went

south, and today there is no better developed and managed part of Chile.

_Araucanian Lands_

A new spurt of immigration occurred after 1881, when the Mapoche Indians

obstinately held claim to sovereignty over the broad belt of lands known

as Araucania was finally destroyed by the republican forces of Chile.

With the frontier barrier overthrown, farming lands lay open, and the

Government made a fresh bid for European settlers.

Agents were sent out to Switzerland, France, England and Germany, and

prospective colonists were offered 40 hectares of land (about 100 acres)

in some regions; in others, twice this amount; part of the passage-money

was given, a yoke of oxen, seeds, implements, materials for house

construction, and a cash advance towards the expenses of the first year.

Against these advances was set off a mortgage upon the property, to be

repaid in three years.

By the year 1884 a French-Swiss colony had been established at

Quechereguas, and another at Traiguen, fifteen miles distant. In the

same region, at Victoria, were Germans and Swiss; French settlements had

been made at Quina, Angol and San Bernardo, while in the Temuco region

were more Swiss colonies, as also at Quillen, Puren, Galvarino, Contulmo

and Ercilla. Between 1881 and 1887 the European newcomers had invested

8000 francs (the Chilean peso being then worth five francs) in land, and

the colonists in Araucania numbered about 4000.

Their early life had its difficulties. When railways began construction

through the long-secluded territory the Indians became infuriated, and

the unfortunate colonists suffered from repeated raids. Property was

destroyed and settlers attacked and killed when the Angol-Traiguen

section of the line was commenced, and eventually a special police force

was established to protect the new settlements. The Swiss Government

made investigations through their consulate in Valparaiso, raising

certain points in connection with the well-being of the Swiss

immigrants, their physical security, and delay in obtaining land titles,

and, although the Chilean authorities did their best to ameliorate

conditions, a check to the invitation extended was felt for a time.

However, the young towns began to prosper, the Chilean Government

planned and began more railways, and before the end of the century the

whole territory had been tentatively opened. Cultivated fields spread

over the face of the old Indian reserve, joining eventually with the

Valdivia and Llanquihue lands settled thirty years previously.

Two small specialised groups of immigrants are to be seen in the south

in addition to the German and Swiss wave. After the last Boer War, a

number of farmers came from South Africa with their families, and

settled upon the Island of Chiloé. Here the fair-haired children of the

Boer folk thrive, the farms are neat and well kept, and the properties,

many of them extending to the sea’s edge, appear to flourish. The other

transplantation is that of a group of Canary Islanders, a hardy folk who

have acquired land on the beautiful Budi Lagoon, on the coast of Cautín

Province. In the southern provinces below the Bio-Bio, however, the long

existence of the Spanish outposts next door to Indian populations had

its effect upon both groups. The Indians learned quickly to adopt the

European habit of keeping domestic animals—they are said to have owned

50,000 sheep by 1567—and to till the soil; the Spaniards or their

descendants of mixed blood learned to live contentedly in houses of mud

bricks, to eat Indian food and to prepare it in the Indian manner. The

southern tribes had no domestic cooking vessels: holes in the soil,

beaten hard and lined with stones, were heated with wood fires, and the

food, thickly wrapped in leaves, was placed in a red-hot cavity and

covered down with branches: all kinds of food together—shell-fish,

birds, green vegetables, potatoes—were put in, the whole coming out as

an appetising, steaming mass. This _curanto_ was adopted by the

mestizos, and still survives in certain localities as a favourite dish,

exactly as the old Peruvian _locro_, the potato stew of Inca days, is

still an indispensable item of the menu of upland West Coast towns

today.

Neither coffee nor tea were to be had in the south in early days; the

former in fact had not yet come into general European use, while the

import of tea was forbidden under the Spanish colonial régime; the

mestizos took to a drink made of ground and parched maize mixed with

water, or chicha, or the infusion of yerba maté, imported overland from

Paraguay. The latter custom still survives in country regions, while the

colonists from Central Europe of last century filled their need for

coffee with a decoction of dried, burnt and ground figs. The use of the

woollen poncho, a garment excellently adapted to the climate, has long

been general amongst the farming classes or any others spending much

time out of doors and, especially, in the saddle.

Captain Allen Gardiner, in Chile between 1814 and 1838, observed that in

the south a spade was used by the Chilenos which was a copy of the

Indian implement, made of a horse’s blade-bone lashed to a

four-foot-long pole; that thread was spun by hand without a wheel, and

cloth woven upon the “very rudest description of a loom”; and that the

descendants of both races built their ranchos of an oval shape, with mud

floors, wattled sides, no windows, an interior row of supporting posts,

and a roof with openings at each end of a raised ridge-coping; the fire

was built in the middle of the floor.

Material comforts brought by contact with the world, and prosperity

resulting from access to markets, transformed the mode of life after the

arrival of colonists, the advent of the railway, and the commencement of

steamship services. When flowers began to be seen in the window-spaces

of southern houses in place of iron grilles, as Vicente Perez Rosales

says, it was the signal of a new standard.

Formal colonisation in Chile is today little needed, but there is a

constant informal inflow of white foreigners of good standing who in a

considerable proportion marry the charming Chilean women and are added

to the permanent population. No great wide spaces are undeveloped, and

the natural increase of a healthy land will suffice for industrial

needs.

CHAPTER XV

CHILEAN LITERATURE

_Conditions of Authorship.—Historians.—Politicians, Engineers and

Novelists.—The Society Novel.—Realistic School.—Poets._

Conditions of authorship in Chile are not altogether encouraging to the

writer of books. The journalist has a fair chance, for in this as in

almost every Latin-American country where prosperity is at least

recurrent, there is a large output of daily and weekly papers; if the

publishers are unable to offer any great financial reward to talent,

they are keenly sympathetic, and the writer of light or learned essays

is eagerly welcomed and rapidly renowned. But publishers of books, as

developed in Europe, are unknown in the Americas south of the Rio

Grande. Therefore the author of distinction or wealth frequently takes

his manuscripts to Paris or Madrid, where he seeks a professional

publisher to issue his work, and although he may share in the expenses

of publication he is consoled by the assurance of expert distribution.

The way of the author publishing in Chile is harder. He goes to a

printer with his book, makes a personal contract, pays the bill, and

then has to market his wares. Any advertising is performed at his own

expense and he must depend for sales upon the local bookstores. He is

secure of receiving encouraging reviews in the local press, unless he

has become unpopular in any particular quarter for, perhaps, political

reasons, and the bookstores always seem proud to display the groups of

“autores chilenos” upon their shelves. But, in the case of a serious,

non-fiction book, the author rarely prints more than 200 copies, and

thinks himself lucky if he sells 50. A novelist who has already achieved

something of a name probably prints 500 copies and may reasonably expect

to sell half that number.

The lack of professional publishers all over Spanish America appears to

be due chiefly to mental dependence upon other countries and

particularly upon France. By far the greater proportion of books offered

for sale in any Spanish American town is French, or translations into

Spanish of French books, the list ranging from such classics as the

works of Voltaire, Rousseau and Nordau to Zola, Dumas, Anatole France,

Guy de Maupassant and the more modern writers of fiction. Conan Doyle’s

detective tales still sell freely in Latin America, as do the works of

Scott, Kipling, Rider Haggard, Hardy, and a few other “standard” English

authors, in Spanish translations some of which are not so much

incredibly bad as extraordinary misfits. The oddest translation of this

kind that I have ever picked up from a Latin-American bookstall was of

Sudermann’s “Mill.” I found it on a forlorn newsstand in interior

Nicaragua, and kept it as a shining example of the difficulty of

translating into a Latin from a Teutonic tongue. Neither the speech of

the German peasants, the routine of the mill, the ideas or scenery

“went” in Spanish, and it is at least partly because a French story

translates so happily that Latin America is flooded with French

literature. All these translations are made in Europe, and are generally

published in Madrid; as a result, Latin America reads, in the main, what

Spain reads.

Under these circumstances it is admirable that the slender stream of

Chilean literature persists. Examining the output, one concludes there

are today two main classes of producers: first, the authors who are true

artists, pricked by the age-old necessity for writing, and secondly the

propagandists who for the sake of public service, or political reasons,

wish to present their views. In the delicate mid-shades one finds the

genuine historian; the personage whose aim is to achieve a literary

reputation; and the sound economic essayist.

As regards history Chile has been well served by her own sons. The

bright spirit of Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna, descendant of one of the

distinguished Irish settlers in Chile, informs his “History of Chile,”

while excellent work was also done by Barros Arana in his monumental

record. It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of another series

of productions by José Toribio Medina. This delver into archives has

been producing for many years the result of tireless and critical work,

the books being printed “en casa del autor” (in the author’s house). His

series of “Documentos ineditos para la Historia de Chile” run to twenty

volumes; we are also indebted to him for a detailed and fully documented

account of the Inquisition in Chile, in addition to similar works

dealing with the Inquisition in Peru and Mexico. He is, in fact, one of

the most indefatigable workers in the Latin-American field of history.

Among other living historians of Chile is Dr. Domingo Amunátegui Solar,

Rector of the University of Chile, while Chilean geography owes much to

Don Ernesto Greve, head of the Geographical Board in the Public Works

Department in Santiago and to the devoted work of Dr. J.G. Guerra.

Of political monographs, Chile has sufficient writers of this class of

work coming from the ranks of journalists as well as from those of the

professional politician; a glance at a pile of such pamphlets leads

inevitably to the conclusion that only a small proportion can possibly

be disposed of by sales. But among the political writers whose essays

are frequently of wider interest is the author of “The Neutrality of

Chile,” Enrique Rocuant.

The distinguished engineer, Santiago Marín Vicuña, is one of the best

Chilean writers upon economic subjects, his range covering railways,

mines, irrigation, ports, canals, etc. The press of the excellent

_Mercurio_ of Santiago reprints in book form many of these and kindred

articles of national concern, performing sound work in bringing the

acute problems of the country before the public, never more needed than

in republics where continuity of domestic as well as foreign policies is

often lacking.

In the realm of fiction it cannot be said that Chile is rich. She has

never yet produced a great novel. But there is consolation in the fact

that neither have most of her sister states, the greatest wealth of

literature, particularly of the genuinely national school, flowering in

Portuguese and not Spanish America; the novels, belles lettres,

historical studies and poetry of Brazil have been and are poured forth

in quantities that are torrential compared with the thin streams from

many other Latin-American countries. The fact is curious when one

considers the present strength of Spanish literature compared with that

of Portugal. It would be unfair to Spanish America if one did not seek

an explanation of her attenuated literary production on other grounds

than those of mental capacity, and unfair to Chile if her output were

not considered in relation to that of all other parts of Spanish

America. Spanish America during the major part of the nineteenth century

underwent constant political upheavals resulting in the preoccupation of

the most brilliant men with presidential disputes and, not infrequently,

the exile of the most active citizens from a share in their country’s

advancement and ideas. Behind the former Spanish colonies lay, also, a

traditional acceptance of formalities and inhibitions that were far from

encouraging to intellectual development.

Nevertheless, here and there rose bright founts of literary production

during last century. It is not surprising that the best of these

originated in the regions where the viceregal courts had been

established for three hundred years, where the Royal Audiences and

universities had been set up and a nucleus of well-educated people

settled. The best-known novel of South America (aside from Taunay’s

famous “Innocencia”), the sentimental “Maria” of Jorge Isaacs, is not a

case in point, however, for the author, writing in proud and

intellectual Colombia, was the son of an English Jew.

But amongst the shining examples to be found is the list of novels put

out by José Milla in Guatemala, and the work of Ricardo Palma in Lima.

Milla, an indefatigable worker of fine intellectual training, put most

of his romantic-historical novels into a colonial setting, and enjoyed a

great local vogue, while the “Tradiciones de Peru,” although purporting

to be legendary rather than fiction, strikes a somewhat similar note.

Chilean literature has not developed along like lines. Here the

development of the novel was chiefly based upon the internal political

struggles of the country during the later part of the nineteenth

century, and, with such themes as that of the revolution against

Balmaceda fading from public interest, the military-patriotic story has

yielded to two chief classes, the society novel and pictures of the life

of Chilean peasants and workmen.

The former are not infrequently of an insufferable length and

insipidity; the scene is nearly always confined to Santiago, and the

author devotes half his pages to minute descriptions of the heroine’s

costumes, while the rest of the space is taken up with endless

discussions about _amor_. For instance, in the highly reputed “Martin

Rivas” of the late Alberto Blest Gana, one of the most polished and

admired Chilean novelists, it is impossible to discover why Edelmira,

Leonor, Adelaide, or Matilde should “love” or dislike Martin, Agustin,

Rafael, Emilio, or Clemente; not only is all the conversation of the

young people based upon the question of whether someone does or does not

cherish a heart-affair, but all the fathers, mothers, uncles and

brothers are represented as perpetually running about suggesting that

their sons, daughters, sisters, etc., should enter into matrimony. The

high principles of the virtuous Martin do not prevent him from suborning

a soldier and police official in order to escape from jail, but his

worst crime in the eyes of the reader is likely to be his interminable

letters of loquacious sentimentality, which unfortunately set as well as

followed a fashion. “Los Transplantados,” displaying the Chilean who

elects to live out of Chile, is generally placed second in popularity.

This novel and “Martin Rivas” were imitated in a trickling stream of

politico-social-amatory novels, of which perhaps the best-known late

successor is Luis Orrego Luco’s “Al Traves de la Tempestad,” in two

thick volumes whose pages, devoted as they are to unctuous accounts of

the heroine’s feathers and embroidered dresses, are relieved by

occasional strokes of interesting political portraiture of thirty years

ago.

By far the most interesting and vivid fiction of today is that of the

realistic school, dealing with the Chilean workman, bandit, etc. The

methods of Blasco Ibañez inspire much of this output, and it frequently

happens that in order to achieve an appearance of strength the author

descends to a sordid brutality that is apt to defeat its own ends. We

don’t believe it. This murdering, lying, callous drunkard is not a

typical Chileno, says anyone who knows Chileans, and we begin to suspect

the novelist of cultivating misery in the first place because he thinks

it makes his work strong and secondly because he really has not studied

the Chilean working-class very thoroughly, and trusts that his readers

are equally unaware. An example of this class is “El Roto,” by Joaquin

Edwards, published in the middle of 1920. “El Roto” followed the work of

several other writers dealing with the life of the _campesinos_

(countryfolk), miners, _huasos_ (cowboys), etc., of Chile. Baldomero

Lillo is perhaps the most lucid, restrained and sympathetic of the

members of this school, and his “Sub-Terra” is a stronger collection of

short stories than those of “Sub-Sole.” Lillo is the avowed friend of

the poor and simple; his miners and beggars are invariably wronged, and

the bailiff or foreman the wicked aggressor. His most successful tales

are pitched in a minor key, a tragedy the inevitable conclusion; but his

delicacy of expression, admirable sincerity and brevity, and the plain

fact that he knows the life of which he writes, single him out from the

brutal-realistic stream. Lillo worked in the coalmines of Lota in his

youth, was afterwards an employé in a store in Lebu, and did not begin

to write until years afterwards he came to Santiago and joined the band

of young Chilean writers that included his distinguished brother, the

poet Samuel Lillo. Don Baldomero is not a fertile producer, but his work

is of steady quality. Another portrayer of virtuous _campesinos_ is

Federico Gana, whose “Días de Campo” is a pleasant, smoothly written

series of scenes. In quite another manner are the stories of Mariano

Latorre, whose most striking volumes are “Cuentos del Maule” and “Cuna

de Cóndores.” Latorre’s background in the latter tales is the Chilean

cordillera, a region plainly well known to him; he has a gift for

incisive description, and if his characters are frequently insensible,

melancholy and animal, they are at least rarely sentimental. Don Pedro

Cruz, a well-known Chilean critic, has criticised Latorre for playing to

the gallery with his sententious insistence upon the characteristics of

the Chilean race as displayed by his rather morbid peasantry, and,

speaking in general of the school to which Latorre belongs, declares:

“We are tired of the idiocies of Peiro, the brutalities of Goyo, the

sensuality of Florinda, the cunning of Ermelinda, although all this is

presented to us with a mixture of dawns, sunsets, trees, brooks and

fragrant breezes,” and roundly charges the authors with lack of

imagination and inadequate study of their own environment; the gross

peasantry shown in these stories is not, he says, genuinely Chilean, as

it pretends to be: “Character consists in a mode of thinking and

feeling, and these writers seek the national character in precisely

those individuals who think and feel the least.”

Among the minor writers of fiction are Augusto Thompson, Fernando

Santiván, Diego Dublé Urrutia, Egidio Poblete, Rafael Maluenda and

Francisco Zapata Lillo, most of them writers of short stories and

delicate sketches rather than of profound studies. A tendency towards

decision of style and condensation of expression has undoubtedly made

itself felt during the last decade, and the scores of facile pens in

Chile promise the development of the national novel.

Amongst the most interesting recent work is the output of a group of

Chilean women writers. The charming “Tierra Virgen” of Señora Echeverria

y Larrain (“Iris”) describing the southern lakes and woods of Chile, is

a cameo of literature, while the work of two younger writers, Laura

Jorquera (“Aura”) and Elvira Santa Cruz (“Roxane”) is sincere and of

remarkable promise. The former writer’s “Tierras Rojas,” a tale of life

in the high copper plains of Antofagasta, is a genuine picture and her

“En Busca de un Ideal” a pleasant love story. Elvira Santa Cruz has, I

think, done nothing better than her “Flor Silvestre,” with its

presentation of life in the Chilean countryside.

Drama has received a number of Chilean contributions, although it is but

rarely that the visitor to Chile has the opportunity of seeing a Chilean

play. Acevedo Hernandez, Videla y Raveau, Armando Monk, and Rafael

Maluenda have all written plays of merit. But while playhouses are

chiefly filled with foreign companies acting foreign plays, the Chilean

author has little to stimulate his talent.

Like every other Latin-American country, Chile claims a large number of

delightful versifiers. A sense of melody and love of sweet words is part

of the Latin inheritance, and development of sentiment is encouraged by

the fine climate, physical beauty and spring of life found in such happy

regions as Chile. The musical quality of the Spanish tongue lends itself

to the expression of emotion, and no shame is felt in fervid outbursts;

environment and vehicle combine to encourage the poet of South America.

There has been for half a century a considerable group of young poets in

Chile, many of whom turn in later life to politics, journalism or

another profession; the residuum of mature poets is small. But this is

not because Chile is an unkindly host to the poet: on the contrary, she

is a genial foster mother. The world does not forget that the greatest

of Latin-American writers of noble verse, Rubén Darío, although a

Nicaraguan-born, found here his first literary encouragement, and that

the electrifying “Azul” was published in 1888 in Santiago. Darío was at

the time a weigher in the Custom house at Valparaiso, and Armando Donoso

says, in his Anthology of Contemporary Chilean Poets, that he was no

doubt a very poor weigher. At least, however, he was immediately

recognised as a great poet, and it was Chilean appreciation that set his

feet upon the triumphal path that he trod until his death. As kindly was

Chilean nurture of the genius of another exile, the Venezuelan poet

Andres Bello.

Following Darío’s shining wake, a cluster of Chilean verse-makers began

to publish in the early 90’s: the beginning of the new century showed a

growing list as the work of young Chileans. Included in these early

volumes is the “Ritmos” of Pedro Antonio González; “Versos y Poemas,” by

Gustave Valledor Sánchez; “Esmaltines,” Francisco Contreras; “Campo

Lirico,” Antonio Borquez Solar; “Brumas,” Miguel Recuant; “Del Mar á la

Montana,” Diego Dublé Urrutia; and “Matices,” by Manuel Magallanes

Moure, who has since greatly added to his early laurels. Recently a

selection of his poems, “Floreligio,” was published by J. Garcia Monje

in Costa Rica, that stronghold of Latin-American literature. Magallanes

Moure is an excellent painter as well as a poet of the front rank in

Chile.

Striking a less contemplative and minor note than Moure, the

distinguished Pro-Rector of Santiago University, Samuel Lillo, is one of

the most admired poets. His “Canciones de Arauco” has a good deal in

common with the verse of Brazilian “Indianism,” and the “Canto Lirico,”

“Chile Heroico,” “La Escolta de la Bandera” and the poem to Vasco Nuñez

de Balboa, strike a patriotic note. No poems, perhaps, are more widely

known in Chile than those of the singer Carlos Pezoa Veliz, dead in his

promising youth; and other well-loved verse is that of Victor Domingo

Silva.

Again in the realm of poesy the Chilean woman has a high place. The

brilliant lady who hides her identity under the pseudonym of Gabriela

Mistral is not only a poet but an authority upon literature: a few years

ago she was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in partnership with

the Spanish dramatist Echegaray.

CHAPTER XVI

NATIVE RACES OF CHILE

_Inca Control.—Racial Divisions.—The Southern

Tribes.—Araucanians.—Race Mixture.—Archæology._

Before the coming of the Spaniards to Chile, an important line of

division already lay between the native folk who accepted the domination

of the Inca and those who successfully resisted his rule. The physical

sign of that division was the Maule River.

But both north and south of the Maule the various tribes differed widely

in blood, in speech and habits and in capacity for the adoption of alien

culture. Divergence of a marked character must have existed for a long

time between the primitive, fish-eating coast dwellers and the people

living in the great longitudinal valley, who, although they were in all

probability originally hunters, had taken to the cultivation of such

food staples as maize and potatoes. The coast dwellers were not all of

the same race, although necessity induced somewhat similar living

habits: T. A. Joyce shows that upon the strip between Arica and the

Atacama desert were a colony of the Uros, whose real home was on the

Desaguadero River leading south from Lake Titicaca, but who were planted

on the Pacific littoral in accordance with the Inca system of

transferring tribes. South of these groups were the wood and skin huts

of another colony brought from Bolivia, the _mitimaes_ of the Charca

tribe, who buried their dead in a contracted position. South of Tarapacá

were groups known collectively as Changos, living the same simple life

but practising extended burial. The practical, industrious system of the

Incas could do little with such folk except, probably, to levy a tribute

of fish, and chief attention was turned to the fertile country of the

central valley. Here agricultural life seems to have been forced upon

certain regions through scarcity of game, for although guanacos, birds

and a few small edible animals are found all the way from Coquimbo to

Cape Horn, such creatures as the pudu and the huemul (small and larger

deer) are found only in forestal belts. South America has never

possessed any great quantity of large game animals, and Chile in

particular has a surprisingly short list of indigenous quadrupeds,

although she has always been well stocked with both land and sea-birds.

Today the “Indian” has practically disappeared from the major part of

the coast and from the beautiful central valley of Chile. The 50,000

Araucanians who survive in the Temuco region (Province of Cautín) do not

retain more than dwindling traces of their former customs; in the deep

forestal area of Valdivia and Llanquihue, as for instance upon the

island in Lake Ranco with its group of “Huilliches,” a few people are

found under conditions still approximating to their pre-Spanish state.

But in the extreme south where the freezing water-mazes of the

stormswept archipelagos have tempted few newcomers, the native groups of

Yahgans and Onas and Alakalufs are living in much the same manner as

that described by observers three or four hundred years ago. Here and

there, as near the newly developed farms of Tierra del Fuego, where the

native folk have learnt herding, habits have been definitely changed,

but in the main the folk of the Magellanic regions have been left in

undisputed possession. The natural conditions under which they exist are

not conducive to cultural development. The daily struggle for food

absorbs all effort, and it is only when an outside civilisation armed

with tools and machinery and modern economic knowledge has imposed its

will that the effects of the inclement climate have been conquered.

Despite missionary effort, the southerly native people, among the most

primitive and most miserable tribes in the world, sharing the common

fate of their happier kin of the pleasant lands to the north, have

almost disappeared. Today the traveller traversing by local steamer the

wonderful Smyth’s Channel and nearby inlets and fjords may see, as the

earliest travellers saw, the open canoe of the “Indians” with a wood

fire burning continually upon a tiny hearth of clay, paddled through the

chilly waterways by folk whose dark skins are practically unprotected

from the wind and rain. The Fuegians meet any passing vessel to beg for

clothes and food as they begged from the _Beagle_, but contact with

newcomers has taught them nothing but a new list of small demands. In

the developing life of Chile they seem to have no place.

To discover the true racial differences between the native inhabitants

of Chile before the Spanish conquest is a task requiring more evidence

than lies as yet before us. It is rendered more difficult by the absence

of temples or permanent dwellings and by the comparatively small witness

yielded by graves. Only in the north, in the dry belt, are cemeteries

offering a considerable bulk of remains; here are such sites as Calama

and Pucara, near Chiu-Chiu, where Inca influence is plain although the

residents had certainly attained to no more than a modest cultural

status. The pottery found in the cemeteries of Arica and the Antofagasta

sites is rough and simple; the weaving coarse. The houses were mere

quadrangles of cemented rubble where, as at Pucara, ruins survive in the

rainless country. These are, however, beyond ancient Chile. Nothing so

advanced as this proof of settled communities is found south of Copiapó,

and seekers must fain rely upon the evidence of shell-heaps and

arrowheads, plus the records of early visitors and such help as is

afforded by the life of indigenous folk surviving today.

The names of tribes as recorded or in use are not racial. The cloud of

these appellations confuses the enquirer until he realises that Araucana

is a Spanish derivative of the Quechua “Auca” or rebel; that Picunche

means simply “People of the North” as Huilliche means “People of the

South”; Puelche, “People of the East,” and Moluche, “of the West,” while

the name Mapoche or Mapuche indifferently exchanged for Araucanian today

is a local term indicating inhabitants of a certain territory. Joyce

considers that the evidence proves existence of an agricultural folk in

Central Chile before the Inca conquest, speakers of the Araucanian

tongue prevailing from Atacama to Chiloé. Upon these people of sedentary

habits had descended a wave of nomads from over the Andes, Pampa-bred

hunters who as in many allied cases adopted the speech of the invaded

land. The speech of the rebels or Aucaes survived Inca control following

the invasion from Peru about the middle of the fifteenth century. Of the

tribes found by the Spaniards a century later, the most northerly

Araucanian speakers were the Picunche, a mixture of Pampa immigrants

with remnants of the old “rebel” stock, the latter predominating; the

Moluches, farther south, showed signs of descending in the main from the

Pampa invaders, although among them were found agricultural groups where

older habits had prevailed. In the Andean foothills were the Puelches,

closely allied to tribes of the Argentine plains, who had crossed the

lower mountain passes between Villarica and Corcovado.

Far south, three racial divisions are admitted. Two of these are

commonly known as Fuegians, and these scant tribes, Alakalufs of the

southwest and Yahgans dwelling in the most southerly part of Tierra del

Fuego, are a much more primitive folk than the few and diminishing Onas,

a taller, round-headed race allied to the big Patagonians, and

inheriting from their kin a fair degree of hunting skill. A number of

the Onas have taken kindly to a shepherd’s life since the creation of

scientific Fuegian farms, but the Yahgans remain as they have always

been known to history, a fish-eating, practically amphibious race,

unreconciled to civilisation. The long-headed Alakalufs of the Chonos

Archipelago have been forced, whatever their origin, into a mode of life

much like that of the Yahgans, depending chiefly upon the sea for

livelihood, using arrows and harpoons for killing fish, constructing

canoes and showing skill as watermen.

Very finely worked arrowheads have been and are still being made by

these southerly folk: Chilean specimens are among the best weapons of

the kind found in the Americas. But neither the Onas nor Fuegians have

ever constructed pottery, or know anything of the loom; shell-fish,

seal-meat and fungus, forming their chief food, is frequently eaten raw.

Alakaluf homes are huts of sticks, covered with skins, and carried by

canoe from place to place. They have no chiefs, dwell in family groups,

and we know nothing of their gods. They have as a whole resisted efforts

to Christianise them.

_Araucanians_

Among the great body of Araucanian speakers dwelling in Central Chile at

the time of the Spanish conquest a more definite culture existed.

Religious beliefs were probably genuinely Chilean, since they are quite

distinct from the ideas found on the other side of the Andes. The

supreme Deity Pillan was a sky-god with his dwelling in the volcanos,

and was propitiated by that world-wide institution the medicine man,

here called a Machí. Faith still survives, but so completely has

soothsaying been relegated to women that a case has been known of a male

Araucanian dressing as a woman and keeping up an elaborate life-long

farce in order to hold the berth. “Cures” of the sick by fumigation and

various drinks, and yearly ceremonies under the sacred canelo (a kind of

cinnamon) tree, called forth the major symbols of the Araucanian cult,

but there were neither temples nor images of deities.

The aboriginal Araucanian may be credited with the invention or adoption

of chicha, a fermented drink made of berries or maize (and after the

coming of the Spaniards, of apples from the trees planted by colonists

or missionaries); of the poncho, well woven of guanaco wool, or later of

sheep’s wool; and of the cultivation of maize and the potato. Native to

the West Coast, the potato grows wild today over the chief part of Chile

and the adjacent islands, and formed a valuable contribution to the

limited list of pre-Spanish foods. The use of certain seaweeds, with

cochayuyo as the most succulent, in stews, was doubtless an aboriginal

habit; it survives in South Chile, and in such coastal markets as that

of Valdivia this dried sea-weed is sold and eaten in enormous

quantities. The seeds or nuts of the Chilean pine formed another part of

the old diet. The method of cooking food in stone-lined holes in the

ground is a native custom that remained in use among both “Indians” and

Creoles in the more remote districts until recent times. There seems no

doubt that the game called by the Spanish “chueca,” played with a ball

struck with curved sticks, is genuinely Chilean; it bears a strong

resemblance to hockey. The bolas with which the Chilean _huaso_ (cowboy)

is so efficient was not known on the West of the Andes until after the

Spanish conquest. But with the speedy adoption of the horse and rapid

increase of cattle this implement from the Patagonian pampas became

widely used. Within thirty years after the entry of Pedro de Valdivia

into Chile the horse had spread throughout the inhabited part of Chile,

and mounted Araucanians, hardy and expert, were giving battle to the

cavalry of the Spaniard.

The Araucanian fought to retain his independence for over three hundred

years. It was a contest in which he was doomed to fail in the long run,

but he received from his enemies unstinted appreciation of his courage.

The famous poem “La Araucana” written by Ercilla, a soldier in

Valdivia’s army, embodies a Spanish concept of chivalry rather than that

of the Mapuche; his noble Indian is a mediæval Spanish knight, and the

verses frequently quoted as proof of Araucanian virtues display chiefly

the convention of generous sentimentality infusing the European

literature of the sixteenth century. But undoubtedly the Araucanian

possessed qualities that all the world agrees to admire: he defended his

own, and showed tenacity and ability in that defence. From a series of

tribes living loosely in family groups, obeying no overlord in times of

peace, the native folk evolved a strong fighting confederation. The

Toquis, or wartime leaders, supported by their Ulmen or district chiefs,

developed genuine skill in warfare, and turned the whole of the tribes

living south of the Maule into a mobile fighting community. The task was

rendered easier by the old nomadic habits of a large part of the

population.

The hostile relations between the earliest Spaniards and the Araucanians

became crystallised with succeeding years, a feeling constantly renewed

by women-hunting and house-burning raids upon the Spanish colonies,

followed or preceded by ruthless attacks upon the Indian camps. The

repeated treaties and parliaments arranged by the Spanish authorities

with the Indian leaders during later colonial times were little more

than symbols of optimism.

As far as Spain was concerned, good intentions towards the original

owners of the Americas were frequently pricked to action by the

priesthood, consistent advocates of the indigenous folk. When Charles V,

pressed by Bartolomé de las Casas, published in the year 1542 the “New

Laws” relating to the treatment of American natives it was with a

determination to secure the Indians’ well-being which was only surpassed

by the determination of the colonists to make the greatest possible

industrial use of these folk. “Our principal intention and will”

declared the king, “has always been to preserve and augment the numbers

of Indians, that they may be taught the articles of our holy Catholic

faith and may be well treated as fellow men and our subjects, as indeed

they are.” The strict accompanying rules against enslavement or overwork

of the Indians, and the minute instructions to the Audiencias and

Procurator Fiscal were avoided with dexterity in the colonies from

Mexico southwards, and not all the efforts of the missionary padres

could render them effective, although these and similar laws were

repeated by successive monarchs, and notably by Philip III, at the

instance of that famous apostle of the West Coast, Father Luis de

Valdivia. It cannot be said that, with regard to the Araucanians, this

backing was either badly needed at the time or requited with gratitude;

but it was followed by missionary efforts aiming at Christianisation of

these wild and stubborn people. The Father Nicolas Mascardi, working in

South Chile about 1670, “merited the crown of martyrdom that he

received”; nevertheless the good Philippe de la Laguna took up the task,

converting “Puelches and Poyas” in the mainland region opposite Chiloé,

but making, apparently, little impression of permanence. The

_intransigeance_ of the southerners saved them for a time, for the more

amenable Picunche and simple Changos, accepting the foreign yoke,

rapidly diminished—the survivors losing caste with such finality that

Ocampo, writing of West Coast conditions in 1610, declared that the

Indians were generally downtrodden by the Negroes imported to supplement

them as workers, “with ill-treatment both of word and deed, so that the

Indians called the Negroes their lords, and the Negroes called the

Indians dogs.” It should be said that Ocampo’s comment applied more to

Peru than to Chile, where neither climate nor rich mines warranted the

introduction of any large number of African slaves.

Today the Araucanian who resisted Spanish control is not in better case

than the docile native of the more northerly part of the West Coast.

Their definite overthrow as an independent people dates from 1882, when

Chilean troops seasoned by the campaign with Bolivia and Peru marched

across “la Frontera” and put an end forever to Araucania as a native

stronghold in the middle of republican Chile. By this time Valdivia and

Llanquihue had been colonised, and Araucania stood, fenced against north

and south, in the way of free communication and development. A land

reservation has been allotted in the province of Cautín, its limits

beginning about half a mile outside the town of Temuco. Here dwell some

40,000 to 50,000 Mapuches. The majority are nominally Christianised, and

in addition to the state schools, there are a couple of well-run British

mission establishments near Quepe, where farming and handcrafts are

taught. The younger folk take fairly readily to instruction, but on the

whole the Indians prefer to withdraw themselves from contact with all

foreigners, to live in the native _rucas_, huts of mud and thatch, to

prepare food in the ancient manner, and to work only when a little money

is needed to buy provisions. The women are adepts at the loom, weaving

beautiful ponchos or mantos, and boldly patterned and tinted rugs and

saddle-cloths. Now and again one meets in the streets of Temuco a group

of Araucanians with rugs for sale: there are two or three women and the

male head of the family, who is credited with doing no work but with

careful shepherding of his household. The women have a certain good

looks; the faces are extraordinarily broad, pale bronze in hue, with a

touch of red on the cheeks; the hair is straight and black, plaited and

bound with bright ribbons. The dress consists of a fold of cloth wound

round the waist and held in place by a gaily patterned belt; a bodice,

and a large shawl fastened with a big silver topo or pin. A wealthy

woman will wear silver ornaments across the forehead, in the ears and on

the neck in addition to the almost indispensable topo, and no Araucanian

will sell these adornments from the person, although in hard times they

may be taken to the pawnshop.

[Illustration:

Araucanian Indian, Spinning.

Note the solid wooden wheel of the country cart.

]

[Illustration:

Araucanian Mother and Child.

The hide-and-wood cradle is slung upon the woman’s back when she goes

outside the hut.

]

Racial purity amongst these survivors is not to be expected. There had

been a considerable mixture of blood between North, South, and the

Transandine groups before the Spanish entry, brought about not only by

wars and migrations, but by the custom prevailing among the indigenous

folk of Central Chile of seeking wives outside the tribe. During the

colonial period numbers of white women were systematically seized and

held by the Indians, the resulting admixture of blood accounting for the

comparatively blond strain seen in some of the Araucanian families.

Correspondingly, there was a certain absorption of native blood into the

Spanish towns and settlements, Indian girls and children having passed

into the possession of the Europeans from time to time: but racial

traits have in both cases yielded a great deal to environment, and the

mixed-blood youth of the Spanish sphere of influence is not remarkable

for sympathy with the dwindling remnants of the Araucanian tribes. The

child of the soil appears to be doomed here for very much the same

reasons as the Red Indian is doomed in the states of the North American

Union: he is irreconcilable and sullenly proud; has been conquered by

slow pressure plus the spread of alcoholism and disease; and in spite of

honestly-meant legislation on the part of the present rulers of the

country, is progressively stripped of his remaining property. During a

session of the National Congress in Santiago in early 1921, the Deputy

for Temuco, Dr. Artemio Gutierrez, made a strong protest against the

“constant victimisation” of the Indians by grasping exploiters. He

attacked the municipal authorities for failing to defend the

Araucanians, declaring that spoliation, even the robbing of the native

huts, was permitted, and complained that although the State Government

exempts the Indian from taxes the municipalities do not. “The Indians

are not even masters of the two, four, five or ten hectares they

operate, for they are only in control through the grace of the State,”

he declared, adding that many of these folk cross to the Argentine to

escape their home troubles. Conditions of the kind seem almost

unavoidable in a country rapidly filling up with a new population,

against which the old resolutely sets its face; nothing perhaps is more

typical of this attitude than an incident occurring at the ceremony in

connection with the opening of the railway into Temuco town some years

ago. Amongst the personages of the vicinity invited to attend the entry

of the first train were the local Indian chiefs: they came, with an

entourage of followers, bedecked in feathers, with fine ponchos, mounted

upon fast horses, and were placed in a long double row, facing the line

from either side. The assembly waited, fidgeted, talked; but the

Araucanians sat motionless on motionless steeds, their swarthy,

strong-featured faces set like wood. Presently the smoke of the engine

was seen in the distance, and with a piercing shriek of the whistle

Temuco’s first railway train rushed forward. The people swayed,

applauded, crowded to the rail’s edge, exclaimed excitedly: but not an

Araucanian moved so much as his eyes to glance at the steel monster. It

thundered forward and passed; the crowd pushed across the track, waved

hands and shouted; the Araucanians sat their horses, did not turn their

heads to send a look at the people or the train, and in a few moments

turned off and without a word or a change of expression galloped away.

The ancient rebel refused to take the least outward interest in the

white men’s doings.

One sees in Chile a mirror of what is happening or has already happened

in the major part of the Americas—the gradual extinction of an embryo

civilization. Whatever beginnings the Chilean race had made towards the

development of a social system, the evolution of a tongue and a cult,

have been fruitless. In other continents the impression is given, very

frequently, that the existing culture is built upon an older form, that

it is the first seed of an ancient civilisation that has eventually

flowered through whatever inner struggles and changes: in the Americas

the developing civilisation has been introduced and superimposed, the

young shoot of earliest native growth cut short and fatally withered.

The archæology of Chile does not offer a field for study comparable with

that of Mexico, Peru or Central America, with their splendid ruins of

temples and burial grounds containing ceramic treasures, textiles and

human remains. Because there is less that is spectacular, the Chilean

area has been less adequately studied, and there is much work still to

be done. Valuable researches have been made by the indefatigable José

Toribio Medina, author of “Aborigines de Chile,” published in 1888, and

by R. E. Latcham, author of “Anthropologia Chilena,” while the devoted

energy of Dr. Aureliano Oyarzún in the field of physical anthropology is

of the highest interest. Dr. Oyarzún has published many ethnological

monographs and directs an excellent ethnographical Museum at Moneda 602,

Santiago. A second collection in Santiago, containing much Peruvian

pottery obtained during the War of the Pacific, is housed by the State,

while a third is in the University buildings, possessing many specimens

from Easter Island. Concepción owns a small but well-kept archæological

museum, but the scarcity of purely Chilean specimens displays the gap in

present knowledge.

CHAPTER XVII

EASTER ISLAND

_A Lost Culture.—Fate of the Islanders.—The Statues.—The Bird

Cult.—Wooden Carvings._

Chile is the only South American country owning territory situated at a

considerable distance from her shores; it was picked up, in fact, in

1888 as a kind of derelict child of Spain in whom nobody had much

interest.

For Easter Island has little commercial importance; it has never yielded

precious metals, includes no fair widespread lands inviting agricultural

settlers, and has no woodlands nor a single river. The sheep and cattle

bred upon the island are the property of one company, a British

enterprise, and the natives are but a couple of hundred in number. The

island lies in a lonely position, at the extreme west of the South

Pacific series, and measures but thirteen miles in length and about

seven in width. The hues of the land are sand and tawny; the sea is a

faithful mirror of the turquoise sky; the dreamy heat of Polynesia

endures throughout the year. Easter Island is lonely, lazy,

unproductive, a little speck upon the broad breast of the Pacific.

But shut within its tiny compass, it holds one of the great mysteries of

the world. It contains one of the keys to Polynesian culture, although

it bears no apparent connection, as was once believed, with ancient

American civilization. The strange, almost incredible evidence upon

Easter Island speaks of a culture at once more advanced and more

primitive than that which should be most intimately connected with it.

For instance, the Easter Islanders speak a language which is a branch of

a Polynesian tongue; in certain aspects, the culture of the old people

is clearly allied to that of Polynesia in general. But—here is the

problem of the ethnologists—Easter Island possessed a written language:

the early European visitors put it upon record that the learned men of

the territory could read the script of the wooden tablets of which

specimens still exist. But Polynesia never had a written language, and

pre-Spanish South America, the nearest mainland, was equally ignorant;

the nearest country to the east with any idea of such script was Central

America, in the Maya culture-area, and the nearest to the west was

Sumatra.

The striking and eloquent evidence of Easter Island is fast

disappearing. Two hundred years ago, when it was first visited by

Europeans, stone statues stood, with their tawny headdresses, as a thick

fringe upon the coast, and there were perhaps a couple of thousand

natives, divided into tribes spread over the land, among whom were the

small clan of “wise men” who chanted from the script of the wooden

tablets.

Today the natives are reduced to a handful grouped at one end of the

island, the learned men have all passed away, and not a single statue

stands upright upon the platforms of the coastal memorials. A part of

the sea-border where a series of highly interesting carved rocks stand

is being undermined by the sea, and in a few years little will be left.

Science is therefore deeply indebted to the splendid work of the

Routledge Expedition of 1914–15 in chronicling the exact results of a

thorough examination of the remains, as well as for the indefatigable

research work throwing new light upon this strange and ancient culture.

Modern historical knowledge of Easter Island is scanty. It was

discovered by the Dutch Admiral Roggeveen on Easter Day, 1722, when he

was searching for a small island seen previously by the English corsair

Davis. Roggeveen stayed here for a week, recorded the cultivation of

sugar, sweet potatoes, bananas and figs by the natives, and noted the

thirty-foot high stone statues that stood thickly upon the sea’s edge.

Fifty years later came a Spanish expedition under González, who took

formal possession for the King of Spain and had a map made. A few years

later, in 1774, Captain Cook sailed into the western bay retaining his

name, the expedition’s botanist, Forster, leaving an account of the

island; La Pérouse of unlucky memory was here in 1778. These later

visitors saw little cultivation, thought the island poor, and, according

to Cook, the natives no longer venerated the statues. When the British

Admiralty sent the _Blossom_ here in 1825 the figures near the shores

were nearly all ruined.

_Fate of the Islanders_

Destruction of the natives and their peculiar culture proceeded at the

same time. American sealers, short of hands, raided the villagers from

the early nineteenth century, and when, about 1855, the exploiters of

the Peruvian guano beds needed workers they sent slave-hunting

expeditions to the Pacific. In the course of these raids one thousand

men are said to have been taken to Peru, the prisoners including chiefs

and “wise men.” Principally at the instance of the French, who sent

French-Chilean missionaries about this time to the island, a number were

returned, but only fifteen reached Easter Island alive. These took back

the germs of small-pox with them, and the remaining islanders were

decimated by this disease and by phthisis, introduced, apparently, by

the devoted French priests. This mission had converted all Easter Island

to Christianity by the year 1868, and in the zeal of proselytisation

brought about the destruction of quantities of the inscribed wooden

tablets.

Commercial exploitation of the island by French traders operating from

Tahiti led to the shipment of many natives to Tahitian plantations and

the gathering of the 175 survivors into one small settlement at the

western end of the island (at Mataveri) by the time that the _Topaze_

called in 1868. This vessel took away the two stone statues that are,

fortunately, now preserved in the British Museum. The American vessel

_Mohican_ came in 1886, the paymaster Thomson subsequently publishing an

account of the conditions, and retailing a few folk-stories; a statue

was excavated and taken to Washington. In 1888 the Government of Chile

formally took possession of the island, retaining part of the western

territory for the permanent use of the natives. The rest of the island

is under the control of a British stock-raising company with

headquarters in Valparaiso.

That is the brief record of Easter Island from the outside. But it has

been increasingly plain since archæology and ethnology took form as

organised sciences some fifty years ago that the strange series of stone

figures and wooden carvings emanating from Easter Island presented a

magnificent puzzle. The work done with courage and ability by the

Routledge expedition will perhaps only be adequately appreciated when

the remains upon the island are no longer intelligible to the remaining

natives. This time is rapidly approaching, and the resulting mystery

adds to the picturesque quality of this lonely spot.

_The Statues_

The majority of the figures bordering the sea were overthrown during

tribal feuds. These figures originally stood at the end of sloping

platforms of stone slabs, called _ahus_, upon which the bodies of the

dead were laid, or under which they were buried; and the figure upon

each _ahu_ was crowned with an enormous “hat,” five to eight feet in

diameter, of reddish volcanic stone brought from one spot, a quarry on a

slope of the volcano Punapau.

But these statues of the burial-places formed only one of the island

series. The Routledge Expedition identified three roads, apparently

connected with tribal ceremonies or rights, which were once bordered by

giant figures; while on the interior as well as the exterior slopes of

the volcano Rano Raraku, in the southeast, are scores of these strange

carvings. The slopes of Raraku are almost the sole sources of the “image

stone” used by the islanders, and in the quarries are to be seen huge

heads in all stages of preparation, some completed and in process of

removal. The figures vary in size, some weighing 40 to 50 tons, but all

follow a similar design: a tremendous face, with closed lips, and long

nose with a concave bend. The back of the head is so narrow as to be

almost negligible, but a distinguishing feature is the length of the

ear-lobes, distorted to four or five times the natural size. The back is

carved with some care, and a curious design that includes circles is

often marked out upon it; the shoulders are well shaped, but the arms

and hands are shown by a simple and well-conventionalised method, the

fingers frequently meeting across the front of the waist. At the hips

the carving ceases, the rest of the stone being generally shaped into a

peg for convenient erection. Severely simple and quite primitive as the

figures are, there is a fine dignity, a repose, about the slightly

up-tilted faces that is impressive; the effect of the statues _en

masse_, as they are still to be seen, many of them erect, with the faces

looking out from the mountain on the slopes of Raraku, is remarkable,

even through the deadening medium of a black and white photograph. Why

the statues were carved in such number—there are 150 above the crater

lake of Raraku—and why the work ceased, is one of Easter Island’s

problems. The unanimity of design, its peculiar conventions, and the

skill and decision of the workmanship, suggest a “school”; and as the

writers and readers were a special inner guild, so, apparently, were the

image-makers. It is true that there seems to have been at one time an

itch for carving, for in certain regions every piece of stone that

projected from the ground has been carved as it lay, without any attempt

to remove it: perhaps, a beneficent influence was created with each

serene carved face. But it is certain that many of the statues were set

up to mark boundaries, and were so well known that their special names

still survive. The larger figure now under the portico of the British

Museum, for instance, which comes from Orongo, is “Hoa-Haka-Nana-Ia,”

which may be rendered in English, “There is a friend who watches”; the

inference certainly being that this statue stood on a boundary. The

image stone is a fairly soft volcanic rock, and the tools used, many of

which have been found near the images in the quarries, were pieces of

harder stone, roughly chipped, bearing a striking similarity to the

tools found near Stonehenge, and used in dressing the monoliths. The

natives had, of course, no metal. A people of extremely simple habits,

they neither made any kind of pottery nor wove cloth, using beaten bark

(_tapa_) for body-coverings. Food was cooked in holes in the ground,

lined with stones and heated. Fresh water was and is obtained only from

the crater lakes or other collections of rain. The people seem to have

lived contentedly in the many caves on the island, but also built huts

of a uniform pattern: in shape long and very narrow, the hut had a floor

of stones edged with a little wall of slabs; from this sprang a series

of twigs, bent and interlaced together at the top, and covered thickly

with leaves. Food consisted chiefly of the sweet potato, a kind of

sugarcane, and bananas; there was no animal upon the island yielding

meat except a small rodent, but the islanders were expert fishermen, and

also, in the season, caught great quantities of the sea-birds that visit

the nearby rocks to breed.

_The Bird Cult_

The Routledge Expedition, with good fortune and exquisite patience,

discovered and elucidated the extremely interesting story of the Bird

Cult of Easter Island. Dependent upon the sea-birds’ coming for an

important part of their food-supply, the islanders evolved a series of

rites connected with the event. The chief ceremony was concerned with

the securing of the first egg, deposited on Moto Nui, one of three

little rocky islets opposite the highest peak of Easter Island, Rano

Kao, at the southwestern edge. At a spot called Orongo, on a slope of

Rano Kao, are still to be seen fifty stone huts, where the people went

in September and waited for the sea-birds’ coming. Several birds visit

the rocks, but it is the egg of the Sooty Tern, known as _manu-tara_,

that was the islanders’ objective; competition among the watchers was

keen, and only members of the temporarily most powerful clan, or their

friends, could take part in the contest. The competitors, men of

substance, waited in special houses, but deputed servants to swim to the

islet when the season was at hand; carrying food, these men lived in a

big cave, whose carvings are still to be seen, until the curious scream

of the birds heralded their coming. When the first egg was found, the

deputy shouted the news to his employer (who shaved his head and painted

it red), and swam ashore with the precious egg in a tiny basket tied to

his forehead. The victor and his rejoicing party danced ceremonially,

carrying the egg, all the way from the west to the eastern end of the

island, where the bird-man went to a special house for a year, at

Orohié, on Rano Raraku’s slope, strict tabu being maintained for five

months. Each old egg was as a rule given to the incoming bird-man, and

by him buried on Raraku.

Mrs. Routledge says that apparently the last year in which the dominant

clan went to Orongo to await the birds was in 1866 or 1867, although the

competition for the first egg survived for some twelve years afterwards.

Legends of the Easter Islanders appear to point to their racial origin

upon other Pacific islands, and migration in at least two separate

periods, a tradition which is confirmed by the divergence of types

found, and the number of shades, from dark brown to nearly white, of the

skin of the different people. Stories of the wars between the “Long

Ears” and the “Short Ears” suggest that the image-makers, always

depicting elongated ear-lobes, differed in tribal attributes from their

opponents. None of the native settlements upon Easter Island appear to

be of very old establishment.

_Wooden Carvings_

A curious and beautiful series of small objects is typical of the

peculiar culture of Easter Island. The natives had, of course, no metal,

and it must have been with stone or hardwood tools that quantities of

small wooden figures made in former days in Easter Island were carved.

It is not known with certainty whether the territory formerly included a

larger number of trees, offering timber for this work and for the larger

canoes of which tradition speaks, or whether use was made of driftwood.

Today there are no trees of the quality shown by the figures.

The most striking of the old wooden objects represent human

figures—rarely, those of women, and most commonly, of singularly

emaciated men. Specimens of the latter are beautifully finished, and the

head shows “long ears” and faces with “imperials” or little beards, and

marked aquiline features, quite distinct in type from these of the

conventional stone faces. These statuettes are from 29 to 30 inches in

height, the carving bearing a technical resemblance to the “lizards,”

another highly-finished series. Crescent-shaped breast ornaments,

formerly worn by women, have almost entirely disappeared, although a few

specimens survive, one, in the British Museum, bearing inscriptions. The

dancing-clubs or paddles belong to another series of high artistic

merit, but the most interesting of the wooden carvings from an

ethnological point of view are the tablets engraved with signs whose

meaning was lost when, sixty years ago, the last of the _ariki_ (learned

men) died, a slave in the guano fields of Peru.

Tradition upon the island states that the wooden figures were originally

made by a great ariki, named Tuukoihu, one of the first immigrants to

Easter Island from the western islands; but the art of wood carving

still survives feebly, chiefly in the manufacture of objects for sale,

as antiques, to unsuspecting visitors.

The natives today wear clothes, a habit which has probably tended to

render them more liable to disease; they number about 250. Retaining

their two-hundred-year-old reputation of being courageous and persistent

thieves, they have however lost many of their ancient arts and are not

addicted to regular work. But they are of a physically fine type, appear

to possess a gift of wit, and, unless when instigated to anger by their

equivalent for medicine men or women, are an amiable people. They

formerly tattooed the body in definite conventional patterns; their

religious cult was chiefly connected with respect to ancestral dead, and

ideas of spirits, kindly or the reverse. A certain clan, the Miru,

assumed possession of supernatural powers, and specially gifted men and

women were given the usual homage of the medicine man. But religious

ceremonies, as apart from the burial rites, initiation into the bird

cult, and, later, ritual connected with the visits of European ships, do

not appear to have existed.

Of weapons, quantities are found; black obsidian flakes, roughly chipped

at edges, with a short stem bound to wooden handle, are typical.

Exterior communication with Easter Island depends upon the Chilean

Government, sending an Admiralty vessel yearly, and upon the visits of a

sailing ship sent to bring away the wool clip, product of the flock of

the 12,000 sheep, by the commercial company of Valparaiso leasing the

main part of the territory.

The Chilean vessel sent of recent years on the trip is the training ship

_Baquedano_, a corvette fitted with auxiliary engines.

Visits of the British company’s boat are rare, and the representatives

at Mataveri are cut off from the outside world for long periods. During

the early months of the war five vessels of the German fleet appeared in

Cook’s Bay: the _Scharnhorst_, _Gneisenau_, _Leipzig_, _Nurnberg_ and

_Dresden_; they used the island as a naval base for six days, gave out

the first news, considerably garbled, of the war, and went away, first

to sink the _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_ off Coronel and later to meet

their fate at the Falklands. The _Prinz Eitel Friedrich_ also entered on

December 23, went out and captured a French barque, and sunk her inside

the three-mile limit in Cook’s Bay, after landing her crew and that of a

British sailing ship taken off Cape Horn.

CHAPTER XVIII

A NOTE UPON VITAL STATISTICS

Today Chile calculates her area at over 300,000 square miles, with a

population not far exceeding four millions. There is plenty of room for

at least twenty million people, although one must rule out from possible

settlement certain areas of the rugged south, and of the arid north,

where, however, scientific irrigation may bring unsuspected regions into

the realm of cultivated and settled country.

The growth of population in Chile has not kept pace with that of some

other of the South American nations, partly because definite efforts to

invite immigration have long been discontinued. Numerical success has

not always been accompanied by peaceful assimilation, and Chile, with no

great untouched areas to fill, prefers to wait for the natural increase

of her people. Since 1820, when the total Chilean inhabitants did not

reach one million, the number has quadrupled, a few hundred thousand

persons of foreign blood adding, during the century, to the stock; today

the foreign-born residing in the country are calculated at 135,000, of

whom 100,000 are men.

A brief examination of the population figures of Chile shows some

illuminating details, and nothing is clearer than that the apparently

rapid growth of certain regions is not due entirely or even chiefly to

an influx from outside Chile, or to natural increase, but to a shifting

of the workers from one point to another in response to industrial

demand. Antofagasta city, which did not figure at all in the census of

1875 counted 8000 people ten years later, and 70,000 in 1919. This

concentration is of course a result of the magnificent rise of the

nitrate industry, and while a proportion of the employés are Bolivian

and Peruvian, most are drawn from more southerly Chilean districts.

Valparaiso, always a prosperous city, despite recurrent earthquakes,

shows a progressive rise during the last half century from 70,000 to

220,000 people, its lovely residential suburb, Viña del Mar, counting

35,000 more; Santiago also has made strides in accord with her

political, social and financial status, the population numbering

425,000, as against 116,000 in 1865 and 333,000 in 1907. Concepción is

another city showing legitimate and steady increases—75,000 people today

as compared with 14,000 fifty years ago. Iquique, another of the new

nitrate towns, has about 50,000 people, appearing in statistics, like

Antofagasta, only twenty-five years ago.

Agricultural and industrial Chillán, in the south, has over 40,000

people; Temuco, opened to the general population of Chile only after

“the Frontier” was broken down in 1882, made its first appearance in the

census of 1885, and has now 35,000 people. Valdivia, with but 3000

people in 1865, now has 30,000.

But Copiapó, with diminished mining, has a few thousand people less than

she counted in 1865; Lebu has lost half its people since 1875, and has

now less than 3000; Tomé has been practically stationary for fifty

years, for similar industrial reasons.

Two new agricultural and pastoral centres in the south show sustained

activity, Puerto Montt and Punta Arenas. Puerto Montt, like Valdivia,

drew a strong part of its population from Germany and has today 8000

people; Punta Arenas, with less than two hundred inhabitants in 1865,

has 25,000 people. Forty per cent of these are calculated to be

foreigners, chiefly Scots, or Falkland Islanders of Scots blood, and

Yugo-Slavs; the only other city showing so large a proportion of

foreign-born residents is Tarapacá, while Antofagasta has 16 per cent of

non-Chileans.

Vital statistics in Chile are carefully kept and promptly published;

they do not always give satisfaction. A storm of protest was roused, for

example, in the Santiaguino press, led by the outspoken and admirably

edited _Mercurio_, when Santiago’s figures for the first four months of

1920 were issued. Infant mortality was shown to be extremely high in

that period,—5237 deaths to 4777 births,—a fact which called for

investigation by the health authorities, while stress was laid upon the

listing of 2402 of the births as illegitimate. “If on the one hand our

population does not increase in the normal proportion, while on the

other the race is debilitated in the manner revealed by the figures, it

is useless for us to claim proudly that we are a well-defined and

homogeneous nationality,” declared the _Mercurio_, and a cloud of

articles appeared to account and to suggest remedies for the conditions

shown by the official figures.

As regards infant mortality, there seems to be no doubt that the rate is

high for Chile, a fact surprising in view of the healthful climate and

abundance of good food produced in the country. Santiago province

registered during 1919 a death rate of children under one year of 37 per

cent, nine thousand dying out of twenty-four thousand born. Many other

towns registered high mortality rates, but inside this figure. Of these

same 24,000 babies, 10,000 were born out of wedlock.

The two sets of figures no doubt have relation to each other, but it

should be said at once that large numbers of the children officially

registered illegitimate are only officially so regarded. Civil marriages

only are recognised by Chilean law, and if this ceremony is omitted the

couple are officially unmarried although a priest may have united them.

In the country districts, distances are far and marriage fees no light

matter to an agricultural population; many stories are told of young

couples making a long journey to the nearest office where a wedding may

be performed, finding it shut, and returning to set up house without

being able to make another attempt at matrimony. The clergy are accused,

perhaps without sufficient reason, of setting their faces against the

civil marriage, and there was certainly a period in Chile, when the laws

were first enforced, when devout children of the Church who refused to

go through the official form were forbidden the religious ceremony, and

marriages amongst the more obstinate circles practically ceased.

With regard to mortality, no explanation can excuse the loss of so large

a part of the precious life blood of the country. One of the reasons is

certainly to be looked for in the economic independence of many women in

Chile. The woman wage-earner, of whom there is a larger number than in

most Latin-American countries, is not always disposed to risk permanent

association with an unsatisfactory mate—for divorce is scarcely known in

Chile; and where no special social disability results, she prefers

freedom. The whole question is one in which the future of Chile is

concerned, and attracting the attention of thoughtful Chileans, has

called for better housing regulations and schemes for the education of

young mothers in infant care. A group of the admirable Club de Señoras,

the characteristically Chilean association of wealthy, forceful and

intellectual women of Santiago, is working towards the solution of a

serious social problem.

Through the force of economic circumstance, the question of the

employment of women is not one which is likely to be reconsidered in

Chile.

Large groups of men are drawn to isolated camps in the copper and

nitrate fields, and there is a resulting tendency for women in the other

regions to take up work in factories, public services, etc.

It was the War of the Pacific that brought women into the employ of the

street-car companies in Valparaiso and Santiago, for with the men absent

in the army there were gaps in the ranks of workers. When the men

returned their female supplanters refused to give up their berths, and

remained victors. One feels sympathy with their spirited attitude, and,

despite the unlovely dress imposed by the German tramway owners in early

days (which includes the apron of a _hausfrau_) they make a generally

good impression. It is doubtful whether such work is well suited to

women; the hours are long—the old (now altered) time schedule kept

certain women at work as conductors for fourteen hours a day—and the

strain is plainly great upon feminine endurance.

Employment in the Chilean post-offices is not within the same category,

but one becomes in South America so well accustomed to the general and

graceful habit of service to women that a certain mental adjustment is

required before one becomes inured to receiving service from them. If

the far-famed Chilean politeness, a genial flame of nation-wide

brightness, suffers an occasional eclipse, it is almost invariably due

to the widespread employment of women.

PROVINCES AND POPULATION OF CHILE

_Province_ _Departments_ _Area in _Population,

Sq. Census of

Kilometres_ December,

1920_

Tacna Tacna, Arica, Tarata 23,306 38,902

Tarapacá Tarapacá, Pisagua 43,220 100,533

Antofagasta Antofagasta, Tocopilla, Taltal 120,183 172,330

Atacama Copiapó, Chañaral, Freirina, 79,531 48,413

Vallenar

Coquimbo La Serena, Elqui, Ovalle, 36,509 160,256

Coquimbo, Combarbalá, Illapel

Aconcagua San Felipe, Petorca, Putaendo, La 14,000 116,914

Ligua, Los Andes

Valparaiso Valparaiso, Quillota, Limache, 4,598 320,398

Casablanca

Santiago Santiago, La Victoria, Melipilla, 15,260 685,358

San Antonio

O’Higgins Rancagua, Cachapoal, Maipo 5,617 118,591

Colchagua San Fernando, Caupolicán 9,973 166,342

Curicó Curicó, Santa Cruz, Vichuquén 7,885 108,148

Talca Talca, Lontué, Curepto 10,006 133,957

Maule Cauquenes, Constitución, Chanco, 7,281 113,231

Itatá

Linares Linares, Loncomilla, Parral 10,279 119,284

Ñuble Chillán, San Carlos, Bulnes, 9,050 170,425

Yungay

Concepción Concepción, Coelemu, Talcahuano, 8,579 247,611

Puchacai, Lautaro, Rere

Arauco Lebu, Arauco, Cañete 5,668 60,233

Bio-Bio La Laja, Nascimiento, Mulchen 13,863 107,072

Malleco Angol, Collipulli, Traiguen, 8,555 121,429

Mariluán

Cautín Temuco, Imperial, Llaima 16,524 193,628

Valdivia Valdivia, Villarica, La Unión, Rio 23,285 175,141

Bueno

Llanquihue Llanquihue, Osorno, Carelmapu 90,066 137,206

Chiloé Ancud, Quinchao, Castro 18,074 110,331

Territory of Magallanes 169,251 28,960

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

=Total Chilean Territory= =750,572= =3,754,723=

[Illustration: POLITICAL MAP OF CHILE RAILROAD MAP OF CHILE]

CHILEAN TERMS

_Aji_: small red peppers, highly aromatic, grown in the northerly

regions; used extensively in Chilean cooking.

_Alerce_: a tall conifer of South Chile; fine lumber. _Alerzal_, a

wood of _alerce_ trees.

_Algarroba_: the sweet pod of the minosa-like Algarrobo tree (North).

_Algarrobo_: (al carob, Arabic), term applied by Spanish to small

thorny tree bearing pods used as cattle fodder (North).

_Antofagastino_: native of Antofagasta.

_Arenal_: sand desert, sand-laden wind.

_Atacameño_: native of Atacama.

_Avellano_: small tree (Central and South) yielding the avellana, a

soft-shelled nut resembling the hazel.

_Bolas_: throwing weapon used by mounted cattlemen or hunters; long

pliable rope or hide thong with heavy weights at either end, flung

in such a manner that it enwraps and twists about the legs of the

animal pursued.

_Boldo_: a small tree yielding the drug _boldaina_.

_Boquete_: a mountain pass.

_Brasero_: deep dish or bowl, usually made of copper or silver, filled

with charcoal and heated for cooking purposes or to warm a room.

_Butre_: smallest wild bamboo.

_Cajón_: a gap in the high mountains.

_Caliche_: strata containing nitrate of soda.

_Camanchaca_: fog or mist over the northern plains.

_Cancha_: depot (for ores, North); gun-park; tennis-court.

_Candeal_: hard brown wheat of the southerly provinces.

_Canelo_: sweet-smelling small tree (Central Chile), the “South

American cinnamon.”

_Capacho_: bag used for carrying ore, made of hide.

_Capataz_: foreman of workers.

_Carbonado_: a Chilean soup.

_Cardón_: applied to various thistles and especially to the big

blue-flowered _Cynara cardunculus_, growing through Central and

South Chile, but the term is also used for many spiny plants and

leaves, for the wild artichoke and the thorny leaves of the Puya.

_Cateo_: the search for a mine.

_Cazuela_: thick stew, made with chicken, rice, potatos, aji, etc.

_Chacolí_: country wine, lightly fermented.

_Chacra_: a small cultivated plot of land.

_Chagual_: applied generally to _Puya chilensis_ or _Puya coarctata_,

growing freely from the sea-border to Andean slopes in all Central

Chile: the tall spike of blue, or in other varieties yellow

flowers is the “chagual,” while the spiny leaf is called “cardón”

and the big thorns used as knitting-needles; the flowers are

gathered for their honey.

_Chaucha_: twenty centavo piece.

_Chañar_: small tree (North), yielding date-like fruit. _Chañaral_,

group of chañar trees.

_Charqui_: dried meat (“jerked” beef).

_Charquican_: Chilean dish made with charqui.

_Chicha_: heavy liquor made from grapes or apples; formerly made from

wild berries by Indians of Chile.

_Chileno_ (a): native of Chile.

_Chillehueque_: Araucanian name for the Guanaco.

_Chilote_: native of Chiloé.

_Chinchilla_: small fur-bearing rodent, today scarce and valuable.

_Chingana_: wattled booths set up at fairs for the assembly of

musicians and dancers.

_Choapino_: saddle-cloth, woven of thick black-dyed wool (South).

_Choclo_: maize.

_Cholo_: a Peruvian. Cf. _Godo_, a Spaniard; _Gabacho_, Frenchman.

_Chonta_: palm growing on Más a Tierra island (Juan Fernandez group),

yielding a fine wood of which walking sticks and canes are made,

prized for the bright yellow and black pattern of the wood. The

young head of the palm is cooked and eaten as a “cabbage.”

_Choros_: large mussels found off Chilean coast, eaten in great

quantities.

_Chuño_: arrowroot; or frozen and dried potatoes.

_Chuso_: a stupid fellow.

_Cochayuyo_: sea-weed, stewed in the south for soup, like _luche_.

_Coihue_, _Coigüe_: large tree (South), yielding hardwood and a red

dye.

_Colihue_: wild bamboo. _Colihual_, bamboo thicket.

_Condor_: giant vulture (Sarcoramphus) of the Andes, ringed with white

about the neck. Appears on Chilean coat-of-arms together with the

native deer _huemul_. Araucanian name, _manqui_.

_Congrio_: a Chilean fish, generally liked; as also is the _corbina_,

_robalo_ and delicate _pejerey_.

_Copihue_: wild vine with a large, rosy bell. The national flower of

Chile.

_Coquimbano_ (a): native of Coquimbo.

_Cueca_: a popular soup.

_Cueca_, or _sama-cueca_: the Chilean national dance.

_Culén_ (_Cytisus Arboreus_): prophylactic against witchcraft: leaves

dried to make a medicinal tea and gum from stalks; well known as a

vermifuge.

_Cupilca_: thick liquid or thin paste made with toasted and powdered

wheat or maize and mixed with chicha or chacolí.

_Curado_: “half seas over.”

_Curanto_: Indian dish of meat and vegetables, originally cooked in a

stone-lined hole in the ground.

_Cuyano_: a native of the Argentine. Properly, applied to one born in

the old province of Cuyo, formerly including the then Chilean

provinces of Mendoza, San Juan and San Luis, but used familiarly

of any one born in Argentina.

_Despacho_: shop or store on an estate or mine where goods are sold to

employés.

_Empanada_: a paté, filled with chopped meat, onions, gravy, etc., and

served hot.

_Estrada_: raised bench generally built across the end of a living

room, used in colonial days as a seat for all the ladies of the

family.

_Fernandecino_ (a): native of the Juan Fernandez group of islands.

_Floripondio_: large white pendant flowers of the _Datura arborea_,

growing as a fairly large tree in Chile. Infusions yield the

_huanto_, a drugging drink used in regions of Quechua influence by

witch-doctors to obtain insensibility and visions; _huanto_ is

similar in effect to the _natema_ of Amazonian headwaters; _caapi_

of Eastern Ecuador, and _ayahuasca_ of Peru.

_Fundo_: a general farm. _Fundo de rulo_, a non-irrigated farm.

_Futre_: a pretentious person; in copper mines, a ghost or imp.

_Garúa_: fine rain, like a “Scotch mist” (North).

_Guachuchero_: a liquor-smuggler (mining regions).

_Guagua_: a baby (Araucanian Indian).

_Guaira_, _guairachina_: little smelters built on hilltop to catch the

breeze.

_Gualcacho_: (Araucanian) plant yielding a small native grain similar

to but more delicate than maize.

_Gualhue_: (Araucanian) damp ground, usually near a river, suitable

for maize cultivation.

_Guanaco_: ruminant quadruped, still found in considerable numbers in

the wild mountainous regions, all the way from the Bolivian border

to Tierra del Fuego. Rugs and coverings made of the thick tawny

hair, and the flesh eaten by Indians. In Ch. slang, a “guanaco” is

a country bumpkin, a “hayseed.”

_Guaso_, _huaso_: a cowboy (Central Chile).

_Guemul_, _huemul_: the native deer of Chilean woodland.

_Hacer-se Sueco_: to be unintelligible.

_Huacho_: properly, a motherless calf, but applied to any waif.

_Huasca_: a whip: originally applied to a supple creeper or liana of

the forests, used as a cord or thong.

_Humita_: maize paste.

_Inquilino_: farm-worker on a Chilean estate, on special conditions.

Usually given free house, land for cultivation, rations, small

wages, and use of implements.

_Invernado_: wintering-place for cattle.

_Litre_: a tree used for fuel. Leaves poisonous, affecting persons in

the tree’s shade.

_Llareta_ (_Lareta acaulis_): umbelliferous plant of low growth,

spreading to an enormous size like a giant mushroom: grows in

uplands of Tacna and Antofagasta, and is cut, dried on lower

slopes, and brought down to inhabited regions to serve as fuel.

_Luche_: sea-weed used for making stews.

_Lumo_: a large tree supplying good timber.

_Machí_: medicine-woman of the Araucanians.

_Maitén_: tree with white wood. Leaves infused to obtain a febrifuge.

_Mampato_: the small Chilean pony.

_Manco_: properly, a one-armed man, but applied to broken-down horses.

_Manta_: a finely-woven poncho, often of alpaca or vicuña wool.

_Manto_, black shawl worn by women when attending church services.

_Mineral_: a mineral reef or group of mines.

_Molle_: small tree with sweet-scented flowers and medicinal berries,

formerly used by Indians for making chicha.

_Paco_: slang term for a policeman.

_Palqui_: plant yielding mauve or yellow flowers: ashes used in

soap-making.

_Pampa_: a plain. _Pampas salitreras_, nitrate fields.

_Panqui_ or _Pangui_ (_Gunnera peltata_): plant with large

rhubarb-like leaves, yielding a black dye and tannin. Grows in

great quantities upon the islands of Juan Fernandez. _Pangal_, a

mass of Pangui plants.

_Penquisto_: native of Penco: applied to inhabitants of Concepción

City, the former Penco, or of Concepción province.

_Pirquén_: system by which the miner (pirquenero) works a vein on his

own account, paying a royalty on production.

_Politiquero_: a professional politician: used derogatively.

_Porotos_: beans.

_Porteño_: native of “the port”: usually, of Valparaiso.

_Pudu_: the miniature deer of South Chile.

_Pulpería_: store at a mine or nitrate oficina.

_Puno_: mountain sickness due to rarefied air: more commonly called

_soroche_ in Peru and Bolivia.

_Puntarrense_: native of Punta Arenas.

_Puya_ (Puya chilensis, formerly listed as Pourretia coarctata): group

of plants common in Chile, belonging to the genus Bromeliacrae,

different varieties bearing light or dark blue or yellow flowers

arranged in a huge spike; large orange stamens. The spiny leaves

form a thick rosette at the base, in a form similar to that of the

related pineapple. Feature of landscape in Central Chile, on spurs

of hills. The light pith of the mature stem of the tall

flower-spike, more buoyant than cork, is used for fishing floats

and for sharpening razors.

_Quelghen_: the Chilean native strawberry, remains white when ripe,

very sweet.

_Quila_: the small climbing bamboo of the South.

_Quillay_: a tree yielding a saponaceous bark much used in Chile.

_Quintral_: a beautiful scarlet-blossomed parasite upon poplar and

other trees.

_Quisco_ (_Cereus quisco_): columnar cactus of Central and northerly

Chile, called “torch thistle”; thorns used as needles; grows 12 to

18 ft.

_Raule_: a fine timber tree with red wood.

_Robie_: properly, oak, but applied to the Chilean beeches (South).

_Roto_: a “ragged man,” originally: now applied to any worker.

_Salitre_: nitrate of soda.

_Santiaguino_ (a): native of Santiago.

_Siutico_: “low-class” person; same meaning as _mediopelo_.

_Soroche_: See _Puno_.

_Tajamar_: wall or bank built to restrain the flood of sea or river;

that of the Mapocho river a famous promenade in Santiago.

_Templados_: people in love; same meaning as _encamotados_.

_Ulmo_: drink made of parched and ground corn or maize (Indian).

_Valdiviano_: a native of Valdivia; also name of a vegetable soup.

_Ventisqueros_: glaciers; frequently driven by wind into frozen snow

pinnacles, commonly called in Chile “nieves penitentes.”

_Williwaw_: a squall in Magellanic territory (Scots).

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

59 the Spaniards troubling that the Spaniards troubling that

region given up. The region gave up. The

105 became Lady Calcroft and became Lady Callcott and

published a perennially published a perennially

187 Work on the Portrerillos Work on the Potrerillos

installation was suspended installation was suspended

213 Chiléo’s 134 inches; the genial Chiloé’s 134 inches; the genial

softness of the climate softness of the climate

221 The evergreen beech (_Fagus The evergreen beech (_Fagus

antarticus_) flourishes in antarcticus_) flourishes in

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

● Used numbers for footnotes.

● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

● Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=.