Page:A history of Chile.djvu/43

 Rh painting and varnishing them. They mined gold, silver, copper, tin and lead and made therefrom ornaments, utensils, axes, hatchets and edged tools. They manufactured salt upon the seashore and extracted it from the mountains. They made fixed dyes, used the bark of the quillai for soap, and from seeds they made oil. They made baskets and mats, robes, fishhooks and canoes. Their arms were as well manufactured as those of the Peruvians or Aztecs. They had invented numbers by which they could express any quantity; they used a mnemonical device similiar to the Peruvian quipu — a bunch of interwoven colored threads and knots — by means of which they preserved the memory of their transactions. They had, like the Peruvians, only incongruous notions of art, and were even less skilful in drawing and carving; but they had made considerable progress in physics and astronomy.

The Araucanians, at least, and perhaps other tribes as well, worshiped the sun and moon, and, like the Peruvians, called themselves the "children of the sun." Death they considered a long sleep during which time they passed to a happy country on the other side of the great sea. Like the Puritan fathers, they believed in witches, and stabbed bewitched persons to death with daggers. They had few laws, but these were executed with Draconian severity, capital punishment with tortures being usual. They were in those days, like the Inca's subjects, a cleanly people, performed ablutions after each meal, took especial care of the teeth and were so fastidious that they were careful never to let a hair appear on their faces, or even grow on their bodies. They were as scrupulous about such matters as were the ancient Egyptian priests. The women were clad modestly with a woolen dress of greenish color, a girdle and a short