braided tresses, flowing negligently over their shoulders, and decorate
their heads with false emeralds and a variety of trinkets. They wear
square ear-rings of silver, and have necklaces and bracelets of
glass-beads, and silver rings on all their fingers.

Like all the other tribes in Chili, before the arrival of the Spaniards,
the Araucanians still continue to construct their houses or huts rather
of a square form, of wood plaistered with clay, and covered with rushes,
though some use a species of bricks; and as they are all polygamists,
the size of their houses is proportioned to the number of women they are
able to maintain. The interior of their houses is very simple, and the
furniture calculated only to serve the most necessary purposes, without
any view to luxury or splendour. They never form towns, but live in
scattered villages along the banks of rivers, or in plains that can be
easily irrigated.

The whole country of the Araucanian confederacy is divided into four
principalities, called _Uthal-mapu_ in their language, which run
parallel to each other from north to south. These are respectively named
_Lauquen-mapu_, or the maritime country; _Lelbun-mapu_, or the plain
country; _Inapire-mapu_, or country at the foot of the Andes; and
_Pire-mapu_, or the country on the Andes. Each principality or
Uthal-mapu is divided into five provinces, called _Ailla-regue_; and
each province into nine districts, termed _regue._ Hence the whole
country contains 4 _Uthal-mapus_, 20 _Ailla-regues_, and 180 _Regues_.
Besides these, the country of the _Cunches_, who are in alliance with
the Araucanians, extends along the coast between Valdivia and the
archipelago of Chiloe; and the _Huilliches_, likewise allies of the
Araucanians, occupy all the plains to the eastward, between the Cunches
and the main ridge of the Andes.