I cannot but think that the constant accusations of uncleanliness that have been brought against the Tehuelche Indians are due to the single fact that their dogs are allowed to live in the _toldos_. The result in a country where scab is common may be left to the imagination. But, apart from the crawling things which inhabit his _toldos_, the Indian is fairly cleanly, bathing each day and swimming in the lakes and lagoons. The women make excellent mothers, and the father is inordinately proud of his offspring, especially of his sons. Of how many races can so many good things be truthfully said?
They have a singular custom of bandaging the heads of infants in such a manner as to produce a flattening of the back of the skull. It might be worth the while of physiologists to go deeper into the matter, with a view to discovering how far this alteration in the brain-space determines the character of the individual operated upon. Interesting results might thus be obtained and some vexed problems solved.
A certain stage in the life of each girl is celebrated by a festivity in the camp. An ornamented _toldo_ is put up temporarily for the girl's occupation, and the young men of the tribe march round it singing while the women howl, probably with a view to exorcising any evil spirit who may be lingering about the camp.[9] The ceremony is followed by a feast, and the evening winds up with a dance. The men alone take part in this, and it consists in circling round the fire, pacing sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly. A few dance at a time, accompanying their movements with a constant bowing or nodding of the head, which is adorned with tufts of ostrich feathers. When one party is tired out another takes its place.
Wives, of course, are bought and sold, but when a lady is purchased by a suitor whom she happens to dislike, there is trouble for the bridegroom, and conjugal obedience is only enforced after struggles, of which the not infrequent result is that the mark of the lady's teeth remains permanently upon her lord.
The price of a wife varies, as must be expected in the natural course of things. Strangely enough, a girl's value often depends upon the number of her brethren, who must receive two horses apiece. To buy a bride with means or rather animals of her own, an heiress in fact, who comes of well-to-do people, as much as a hundred mares have been given--or shall I say paid.[10]