Besides the laborious occupation of spinning and weaving, and the usual household labour, each wife (for polygamy is allowed, every man marrying as many wives as he choose, or rather, as many as he can maintain) has to present to her husband daily a dish of her own cooking, and annually a _poncho_ of her own spinning and weaving, besides flannel for shirts and drawers. Thus an indian's house generally contains as many fire places and looms as he has wives, and Abbé Molina says, that instead of asking a man how many wives he has, it is more polite to ask him how many fires he keeps. The females are cleanly in their houses and persons; dirt is never seen on their clothes, and they frequently bathe, or wash themselves three or four times a day. The men also pay great attention to the cleanliness of their persons. The females attend to the cultivation of their gardens, in which the men work but little, considering themselves absolute masters--the lords of the creation, born only to command, and the women, being the weaker, to obey: sentiments which polygamy supports; plurality of wives tending to destroy those tender feelings of attachment which we find in countries where the law allows only one wife. The principal part of the labour of their farms is performed by the women, who often plough, sow, reap and carry to the thrashing floor the wheat or barley, which, when trodden out by horses, is thrown into the air, that the wind may blow away the chaff. I saw no other grain at Tucapel or its vicinity but wheat and barley, in small patches; but I was told that they produced a hundred fold. The care of the offspring is entirely committed to the women. A mother immediately on her delivery takes her child, and going down to the nearest stream of water, washes herself and it, and returns to the usual labours of her station. The children are never swaddled, nor their bodies confined by any tight clothing; they are wrapped in a piece of flannel, laid on a sheep skin, and put into a basket suspended from the roof, which occasionally receives a push from any one passing, and continues swinging for some minutes. They are allowed to crawl about nearly naked until they can walk; and afterwards, to the age of ten or twelve years, the boys wear a small poncho, and the girls a piece of flannel, wrapped round their waist, reaching down to the knees. The mother, after that age, abandons the boys to the care of the father, on whom they attend and wait as servants; and the daughters are instructed in the several works which it will ere long become their duty to fulfil. To the loose clothing which the children wear from their infancy may doubtless be attributed the total absence of deformity among the indians. Perhaps some travellers might suggest, that confinement in any shape would be considered disgraceful to the haughty Araucanians, who are pleased to call themselves, "the never vanquished, always victors."