Volume 2 — ADDENDA.
Reading edition
In the eighth chapter of this volume, I have omitted to mention that there are meetings held among the Patagonians which might be termed ‘courts of justice!’
One such meeting was described to me by an eye-witness:—‘Capitan Chico’ presided at it, on horseback: he was the only person mounted. The older men of the tribe sat in a ring, upon the ground, as judges (or rather as a council, or as a jury). Within the circle were four prisoners, and twelve witnesses. The trial lasted a whole day: but my informant did not see or hear the result.
The same individual told me that the Patagonians often played at a game like hockey.
These things, among others, call to mind Molina’s account of the Araucanians, which some think much exaggerated. Disorganised, dispirited, and exceedingly diminished in numbers, the Araucanians, as we now see them, are scarcely to be compared to those of Ercilla’s poem, who are also described by many authors besides Molina.
END OF VOL. II.
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