Note 113.1 — Chapter IV · Notes

Alcide d’Orbigny, Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale, ii. (Paris and Strasburg, 1839-1843) pp. 99 sq. As to the thieving propensities of the Patagonians, the author tells us that “they do not steal among themselves, it is true; but their parents, from their tender infancy, teach them to consider theft from the enemy as the base of their education, as an accomplishment indispensable for every one who would succeed in life, as a thing ordained by the Evil Spirit, so much so that when they are reproached for a theft, they always say that Achekenat-Kanet commanded them so to do” (op. cit. p. 104). Achekenat-Kanet is the supernatural being who, under various names, is revered or dreaded by all the Indian tribes of Patagonia. Sometimes he appears as a good and sometimes as a bad spirit. See A. d’Orbigny, op. cit. ii. 87.