they procured a strong fibrous substance resembling hemp, of which they made ropes and fishing nets of different kinds; and the inhabitants on the coast used canoes of different kinds and sizes, and floats or rafts of wood, or of inflated seal skins.  Though not peculiarly addicted to hunting, they were accustomed to kill the wild animals and birds of the country, both for amusement and subsistence; for which purpose they used bows and arrows, and the laque or running noose which is employed with so much ingenuity by many of the South American natives.  It is a singular fact that they had the same device as the Chinese, for catching wild ducks in their lakes and rivers, covering their heads with perforated gourds, and wading among the flocks.

They had advanced so far in the knowledge of numbers, as to have distinctive names for the ten units, and for an hundred and a thousand, with all the intermediate numbers compounded of decimal terms.  To preserve the memory of their transactions, they used a bunch of threads of several colours called pron, similar to the quippo of the Peruvians, oh which they cast a number of knots according to circumstances.  The subject was indicated by the colour of the threads, and the knots designated the number or quantity, but I have not been able to discover any other purpose to which this species of register could be applied.  The quippo is still used by the shepherds in Peru, to keep an account of the number in their flocks, to mark the day and hour when the different ewes yeaned, or when any of their lambs are lost.

The religious system of the Araucanians, formerly that of all the native tribes of Chili, resembles in a great measure the freedom of their modes of life and government.  They acknowledge a Supreme Being, the creator of all things, whom they name Pillan, a word derived from pulli or pilli, the soul.  He is likewise named Guenu-pillan, the soul or spirit of heaven; Buta-gen, the great being; Thalcove[59], the thunderer; Vilvemvoe, the creator of all things; Vilpepilvoe, the omnipotent; Mollgelu, the eternal; Avnolu, the omnipotent; and is designed by many other similar epithets.  Their ideas of the government of heaven form in a great measure a prototype of the Araucanian system of civil polity; Pillan is considered as the great Toqui of the invisible world of Spirits[60], and is supposed to have his Apo-ulmens and Ulmens, or subordinate deities of two different ranks, to whom he entrusts the administration of lesser affairs.  In the first class of these inferior deities, are Epunamun, or the god of war; Meulen, a benevolent being, the friend of the human race; and Guecubu, a malignant being, the author of all evil, who is likewise called Algue.  Hence they appear to entertain the doctrine of two adverse principles, improperly called Manicheism.