ARAUCANIANS (or AucA)  , a tribal group of South American Indians in southern Chile (see above) . Physically a fine race, their hardiness and bravery enabled them successfully to resist the Incas in the 15th century . Their government was by four toquis or princes, independent of one another, but confederates against foreign enemies . Each tetrarchy was divided into five provinces, ruled by five chiefs called apo-ulmen; and each province into nine districts, governed by as many ulmen, who were subject to the apo-ulmen, as the latter were to the toquis . These various chiefs (who all bore the title of ulmen) composed the aristocracy of the country . They held their dignities by hereditary descent in the male line, and in the order of primogeniture . The supreme power of each tetrarchy resided in a council of the ulmen, who assembled annually in a large plain . The resolutions of this council were subject to popular assent . The chiefs, indeed, were little more than leaders in war; for the right of private revenge limited their authority in judicial matters; and they received no taxes . Their laws were merely traditional customs . War was declared by the council, messengers bearing arrows dipped in blood being sent to all parts of the country to summon the men to arms . From the time of the first Spanish invasion (1535) the Araucanians made a vigorous resistance, and after worsting the best soldiers and the best generals of Spain for two centuries obtained an acknowledgment of their independence .

Their success was due as much to their readiness in adopting their enemy's methods of warfare as to their bravery . Realizing the inefficiency of their old missiles when opposed to

musket balls, they laid aside their bows, and armed themselves with spears, swords or other weapons fitted for close combat . Their practice was to advance rapidly within such a distance of the Spaniards as would not leave the latter time to reload after firing . Here they received without shrinking a. volley, which was certain to destroy a number of them, and then rushing forward in close order, fought their enemies hand to hand . The Araucanians believe in a supreme being, and in many subordinate spirits, good and bad . They believe also in omens and divination, but they have neither temples nor idols, nor religious rites . Very few have become Roman Catholics . They believe in a future state, and have a confused tradition respecting a deluge, from which some persons were saved on a high mountain . They divide the year into twelve months of thirty days, and add five days by intercalation . They esteem poetry and eloquence, but can scarcely be induced to learn reading or writing . The tribal divisions have little or no organization . Some 50,000 in number, they spend a nomad existence wandering from pasture to pasture, living in low skin tents, their herds providing their food .

They still preserve their warlike nature, though in 1870 they formally recognized Chilean

rule . In 1861 Antoine de Tounens (182o-1878), a French adventurer in Chile, proclaimed himself king of Araucania under the title of Orelie Antoine I., and tried to obtain subscriptions from France to support his enterprise . But his pretensions were ludicrous; he was quickly captured by the Chileans and sent back to France (1862) as a madman; and though he made one more abortive effort in 1874 II to recover his " kingdom," and occupied his pen in magnifying his achievements, nobody took him seriously except a few of the deluded Indians . See Domeyko, Araucania y sus habitantes (Santiago, 1846) ; de Ginoux, " Le Chili et les Araucans," in Bull. de la soc. de geogr . (1852) ; E . R . Smith, Araucanians (New York, x855) ; J . T . Medina, Los aborjenes de Chile (Santiago, 1882) ; A . Polakowsky, Die heutigen Araukanen, Globus No . 74 (Brunswick, 1898) .