SOUTHERN ANDES AND PLAINS 249

Besides hunting, the pursuit which was the mainstay
of their existence, the nomad Puenche also played the
part of traders in salt and textiles. Their wanderings
took them far afield, and, at any rate in later times,
bodies of them penetrated to the Atlantic shore and the
Straits of Magellan. In their trading operations they
played, of course, the part of middlemen, obtaining
their wares from their more settled Araucanian neigh-
bours ; it seems likely that this commerce is of com-
paratively late origin. Fire was produced by all the
tribes north of Fuegia by the friction of two pieces of
wood, one of which was used as a drill upon the other.
In the treeless parts of Tierra del Fuego sparks were
struck from two lumps of pyrites.
The Araucanian nomads were a very warlike people,
as the Spaniards found to their cost, and it is safe to
infer that, before they were forced to combine against
a common foe, inter-tribal combats were very frequent.
War was decided by the council of Ulmen, and the
chief summoned the warriors by sending round an
arrow dipped in blood, or, according to some, a blood-
stained axe and arrow. The Tehuelche were a less
quarrelsome and revengeful people, and though their
habit of abandoning the aged and useless members when
the tribe changed its residence seems cruel, yet in cir-
cumstances such as theirs the presence of the unfit was
a public danger, and their reputation for hospitality
would seem to prove that such a custom was imposed
upon them by necessity. Yet wars between the clans
were not infrequent, if we may judge from the numerous
traces of battlefields which are found in their country.
