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unless the delinquent atones by some valuable gift. Sometimes,
at the command of a wizard, a man orders his wife to go
to an appointed place, usually a wood, and abandon herself to
the first person she meets. Yet there are women who refuse to
comply with such orders.”
When it does happen that a man and his ivife quarrel, the
woman is sometimes punished by having her two tails rather
savagely pulled. I have been told that the hushand scarcely
ever heats her, except in the height of passion.
Children are left to take cai-e of themselves soon after
they can walk. With sets of little halls (holas) they annoy the
dogs not a little, practising their future occupation. While very
young they climh upon old, or quiet, horses’ hacks. If a young
guanaco is caught and tamed, or a hird with its wings
clipped hops ahout the tolderia, the little ones have fine sport.
While infants ai-e suckling, the mothers use frames or cradles
in which their charges are carried ahout: they are made of
flat pieces of wood, with a few semi-circular guards of lath, or
thin hranches, whose ends are fixed into holes in the wood. In
such frames, between pieces of guanaco skin, the babies are
placed; and while travelling, these cradles are hung at the
mothers’ saddle-bows. The children are much indulged.
Falkner says, “ The old people frequently change their habitations
to humour the caprices of their children. I f an
Indian, even a cacique, wish to change his abode, and the
trihe with whom he is living do not choose to part with him, it
is customary to take one of his children, and pretend such a
fondness for it, that they cannot part with the little favourite.
The father, fond of his child, and pleased that it is so much
liked, is induced to remain.”
Yet with all this apparent goodness of disposition, in moments
of passion, these Indians have been seen to be like other
savages, disgraced by the worst barbarity. Neither man,
woman, wife, nor even a smiling innocent child, is safe from
that tiger in human shape—a savage in a rage. “ Nunca,
nunca fiarse de los Indies,” is a Spanish maxim, as well founded
as it is common.
Education, and the beneficial effects of the opinions of others,
an influence fully felt only in civilized society, have so tamed
and diminished the naturally strong p a s s i o n of anger, with its
sequel, immediate violence, or hatred and revenge, that imagination
must be called to the assistance of those who, happily,
have never seen a furious savage.
Who can read that instance of child murder, related so well
by Byron, in his narrative of the Wager’s wreck, without a
shudder ? yet the man who, in a moment of passion, dashed
his own child against the rocks, would, at any other time,
have been the most daring, the most enduring, and the most
self-devoted in its support and defence ! (Appendix No. 14.)
Generally speaking, the Patagonians are extremely healthy.
Their constitutions are so good that wounds heal rapidly: but
they are not ignorant of the healmg properties of some h e ^ s ;
nor of the purgative qualities of others. They know the effect
of bleeding, and can adroitly open a vein with a sharp piece
of shell or flinty stone.
When sick, the chalas root, pounded and mixed with water,
is a favourite specific. Should this, or the few other remedies
which they think they know, fail, the wizard (who is also
doctor) performs some absurd ceremonies, and then rattles together
two pieces of dry bladder, in which are some loose stones,
in order to frighten away the ‘ Valichú,’or evil spirits, who are
opposing their art, and tormenting the unlucky patient. I h e
diabolical noise caused by rattling these dried bladders, is continued
until the disease takes a favourable turn, or the sufferer
dies. I f death ends the scene, the body is wrapped in the best
mantle of the deceased, placed on his favourite horse, and carried
to the burying-place of the tribe. The wizard rattles,
and the other people howl over the corpse as it is earned to the
sepulchre. In a square pit, ahout six feet deep, and two or
three feet wide, where many others have been deposited,
the corpse is placed in a sitting posture, adorned with mantles,
plumes of feathers, and beads. The spurs, sword, halls, and
other such property belonging to the deceased, are laid
beside him; and the pit is then covered over with hranches oi