Page:A history of Chile.djvu/425

 CHILE OF TO-DAY 379. when treated fairly are easily controlled or influenced. They are imitative and what one does they all do, even in the matter of getting drunk. They take care of their old and are kind to each other, save while intoxicated, when they are apt to fight to the death. They have much Indian blood in their veins and exhibit many ancestral traits; they hold wakes over dead children and attempt to cure disease with bits of paper, leaves, or such trifles, pasted upon different parts of the face. The holding of wakes over children is, however, a bar- barous custom that is gradually dying out among them. It consists in decking out the little one in its finery, encircling its head with a wreath of flowers, painting its face and putting strings of beads around its neck, in which condition it is placed upon a table and kept for weeks while drunken festivities are participated in by the parents and friends. As infant mortality is great, the number of wakes in a year must make the custom a troublesome one. Only the strongest children live, so that the peons have become a hardy race by the survival of. the fittest. But education is beginning to take hold upon this people and their condition in time will be greatly ame- liorated. Large numbers of them are yearly emigrat- ing to other South American states, particularly to Argentina, in search of better remunerated work. His lot is a hard one, but he loves his adobe hut, and, drunken as he is, the peon has some fine qualities of head and heart, which may yet make a good citizen of him. He is the surviving progeny of a once proud race of Indians and the valiant Spanish conquistadores, and he has a historical past behind his degraded pres- ent condition. His ancestors were heroes, if he him- self is little better than a serf. The Indian population of Chile is inconsiderable as