particularly obvious, in the serious stories that they relate of apparitions, phantoms and hobgoblins, respecting which they have innumerable tales. But in truth, is there any nation on earth, so far removed from credulity in that particular, as to claim a right of laughing at the Araucanians? They have, nevertheless, some among them, who are philosophers enough to despise such absurdities, and laugh at the folly of their countrymen.

They are all, however, agreed in the belief of the immortality of the soul. This consolatory truth is deeply rooted, and in a manner innate with them. They hold that man is composed of two substances essentially different: the corruptible body, which they call anca, and the soul, am or pulli, which they say is ancanolu, incorporeal, and mugealu, eternal, or existing forever. This distinction is so fully established among them, that they frequently make use of the word anca metaphorically, to denote a part, the half, or the subject of any thing.

As respects the state of the soul after its separation from the body, they are not, however, agreed. All concur in saying, with the other American tribes, that after death they go towards the west beyond the sea, to a certain place called Gulcheman, that is, the dwelling of the men beyond the mountains. But some believe that this country is divided into two parts, one pleasant, and filled with every thing that is delightful, the abode of the good; and the other desolate, and in want of every thing, the habitation of the wicked. Others are of opinion that all indiscriminately enjoy there eternal pleasure, pre

tending that the deeds of this life have no influence upon a future state.

Notwithstanding they know the difference between the body and the soul, their ideas of the spirituality of the latter do not seem to be very distinct, as appears from the ceremonies practised at their funerals. As soon as one of their nation dies, his friends and relations seat themselves upon the ground around the body, and weep for a long time; they afterwards expose it, cloathed in the best dress of the deceased, upon a high bier called pilluay, where it remains during the night, which they pass near it in weeping, or in eating and drinking with those who come to console them. This meeting is called curicahuin, the black entertainment, as that colour is among them, as well as the Europeans, the symbol of mourning. The following day, sometimes not until the second or the third after the decease of the person, they carry the corpse in procession to the eltun, or burying-place of the family, which is usually situated in a wood or on a hill. Two young men on horseback, riding full speed, precede the procession. The bier is carried by the principal relations, and is surrounded by women who bewail the deceased in the manner of the hired mourners among the Romans; while another woman who walks behind strews ashes in the road, to prevent the soul from returning to its late abode. On arriving at the place of burial, the corpse is laid upon the surface of the ground, and surrounded, if a man, with his arms, if a woman, with female implements, and with a great quantity of provisions, and with vessels filled

with chica and with wine, which, according to their opinions, are necessary to subsist them during their passage to another world. They sometimes even kill a horse and inter it in the same ground. After these ceremonies they take leave with many tears of the deceased, wishing him a prosperous journey, and cover the corpse with earth and stones placed in a pyramidal form, upon which they pour a great quantity of chica. The similarity between these funeral rites and those practised by the ancients must be obvious to those acquainted with the customs of the latter.

Immediately after the relations have quitted the deceased, an old woman, called Tempuleague, comes, as the Araucanians believe, in the shape of a whale, totransport him to the Elysian fields, but before his arrival there he is obliged to pay a toll for passing a very narrow strait to another malicious old woman who guards it, and who, on failure, deprives the passenger of an eye. This fable resembles much that of the ferryman Charon, not that there is any probability that the one was copied from the other, as the human mind, when placed in similar situations, will give birth to the same ideas. The soul, when separated from the body, exercises in another life the same functions that it performed in this, with no other difference except that they are unaccompanied with fatigue or satiety. Husbands have there the same wives as they had on earth, but the latter have no children, as that happy country cannot be inhabited by any except the spirits of the dead, and every thing there is spiritual or analogous to it.

According to their theory, the soul, notwithstanding its new condition of life, never loses its original attachments, and when the spirits of their countrymen return, as they frequently do, they fight furiously with those of their enemies, whenever they meet with them in the air, and these combats are the origin of tempests, thunder and lightning. Not a storm happens upon the Andes or the ocean, which they do not ascribe to a battle between the souls of their fellow countrymen and those of the Spaniards; they say that the roaring of the wind is the trampling of their horses, the noise of the thunder that of their drums, and the flashes of lightning the fire of the artillery. If the storm takes its course towards the Spanish territory, they affirm that their spirits have put to flight those of the Spaniards, and exclaim, triumphantly, Inavimen, inavimen, puen, laguvimen! Pursue them, friends, pursue them, kill them! If the contrary happens, they are greatly afflicted, and call out in consternation, Yavulumen, puen, namuntumen! Courage, friends, be firm!

Their ideas respecting the origin of creation are so crude and ridiculous that to relate them could serve for little else than to show the weakness of human reason when left to itself. They have among them a tradition of a great deluge, in which only a few persons were saved, who took refuge upon a high mountain called Thegtheg, the thundering, or the sparkling, which had three points, and possessed the property of moving upon the water. From hence it is inferrible that this deluge was in consequence of some volcanic eruption, accompanied by

terrible earthquakes, and is probably very different from that of Noah. Whenever a violent earthquake occurs, these people fly for safety to those mountains which they fancy to be of a similar appearance, and which of course, as they suppose, must possess the same property of floating on the water, assigning as a reason, that they are fearful after an earthquake that the sea will again return and deluge the world. On these occasions, each one takes a good supply of provisions, and wooden plates to protect their heads from being scorched, provided the Thegtheg, when raised by the waters, should be elevated to the sun. Whenever they are told, that plates made of earth would be much more suitable for this purpose than those of wood, which are liable to be burned, their usual reply is, that their ancestors did so before them.

CHAPTER VI.

Division of Time; Astronomical Ideas; Mea

sures.

TIME is divided by the Araucanians, as with us, into years, seasons, months, days and hours, but in a very different method. Their year is solar, and begins on the 22d of December, or immediately after the southern solstice. For this reason they