CHAPTER XVIII

A NOTE UPON VITAL STATISTICS

Today Chile calculates her area at over 300,000 square miles, with a population not far exceeding four millions. There is plenty of room for at least twenty million people, although one must rule out from possible settlement certain areas of the rugged south, and of the arid north, where, however, scientific irrigation may bring unsuspected regions into the realm of cultivated and settled country.

The growth of population in Chile has not kept pace with that of some other of the South American nations, partly because definite efforts to invite immigration have long been discontinued. Numerical success has not always been accompanied by peaceful assimilation, and Chile, with no great untouched areas to fill, prefers to wait for the natural increase of her people. Since 1820, when the total Chilean inhabitants did not reach one million, the number has quadrupled, a few hundred thousand persons of foreign blood adding, during the century, to the stock; today the foreign-born residing in the country are calculated at 135,000, of whom 100,000 are men.

A brief examination of the population figures of Chile shows some illuminating details, and nothing is clearer than that the apparently rapid growth of certain regions is not due entirely or even chiefly to an influx from outside Chile, or to natural increase, but to a shifting of the workers from one point to another in response to industrial demand. Antofagasta city, which did not figure at all in the census of 1875 counted 8000 people ten years later, and 70,000 in 1919. This concentration is of course a result of the magnificent rise of the nitrate industry, and while a proportion of the employés are Bolivian and Peruvian, most are drawn from more southerly Chilean districts. Valparaiso, always a prosperous city, despite recurrent earthquakes, shows a progressive rise during the last half century from 70,000 to 220,000 people, its lovely residential suburb, Viña del Mar, counting 35,000 more; Santiago also has made strides in accord with her political, social and financial status, the population numbering 425,000, as against 116,000 in 1865 and 333,000 in 1907. Concepción is another city showing legitimate and steady increases—75,000 people today as compared with 14,000 fifty years ago. Iquique, another of the new nitrate towns, has about 50,000 people, appearing in statistics, like Antofagasta, only twenty-five years ago.

Agricultural and industrial Chillán, in the south, has over 40,000 people; Temuco, opened to the general population of Chile only after “the Frontier” was broken down in 1882, made its first appearance in the census of 1885, and has now 35,000 people. Valdivia, with but 3000 people in 1865, now has 30,000.

But Copiapó, with diminished mining, has a few thousand people less than she counted in 1865; Lebu has lost half its people since 1875, and has now less than 3000; Tomé has been practically stationary for fifty years, for similar industrial reasons.

Two new agricultural and pastoral centres in the south show sustained activity, Puerto Montt and Punta Arenas. Puerto Montt, like Valdivia, drew a strong part of its population from Germany and has today 8000 people; Punta Arenas, with less than two hundred inhabitants in 1865, has 25,000 people. Forty per cent of these are calculated to be foreigners, chiefly Scots, or Falkland Islanders of Scots blood, and Yugo-Slavs; the only other city showing so large a proportion of foreign-born residents is Tarapacá, while Antofagasta has 16 per cent of non-Chileans.

Vital statistics in Chile are carefully kept and promptly published; they do not always give satisfaction. A storm of protest was roused, for example, in the Santiaguino press, led by the outspoken and admirably edited _Mercurio_, when Santiago’s figures for the first four months of 1920 were issued. Infant mortality was shown to be extremely high in that period,—5237 deaths to 4777 births,—a fact which called for investigation by the health authorities, while stress was laid upon the listing of 2402 of the births as illegitimate. “If on the one hand our population does not increase in the normal proportion, while on the other the race is debilitated in the manner revealed by the figures, it is useless for us to claim proudly that we are a well-defined and homogeneous nationality,” declared the _Mercurio_, and a cloud of articles appeared to account and to suggest remedies for the conditions shown by the official figures.

As regards infant mortality, there seems to be no doubt that the rate is high for Chile, a fact surprising in view of the healthful climate and abundance of good food produced in the country. Santiago province registered during 1919 a death rate of children under one year of 37 per cent, nine thousand dying out of twenty-four thousand born. Many other towns registered high mortality rates, but inside this figure. Of these same 24,000 babies, 10,000 were born out of wedlock.

The two sets of figures no doubt have relation to each other, but it should be said at once that large numbers of the children officially registered illegitimate are only officially so regarded. Civil marriages only are recognised by Chilean law, and if this ceremony is omitted the couple are officially unmarried although a priest may have united them.

In the country districts, distances are far and marriage fees no light matter to an agricultural population; many stories are told of young couples making a long journey to the nearest office where a wedding may be performed, finding it shut, and returning to set up house without being able to make another attempt at matrimony. The clergy are accused, perhaps without sufficient reason, of setting their faces against the civil marriage, and there was certainly a period in Chile, when the laws were first enforced, when devout children of the Church who refused to go through the official form were forbidden the religious ceremony, and marriages amongst the more obstinate circles practically ceased.

With regard to mortality, no explanation can excuse the loss of so large a part of the precious life blood of the country. One of the reasons is certainly to be looked for in the economic independence of many women in Chile. The woman wage-earner, of whom there is a larger number than in most Latin-American countries, is not always disposed to risk permanent association with an unsatisfactory mate—for divorce is scarcely known in Chile; and where no special social disability results, she prefers freedom. The whole question is one in which the future of Chile is concerned, and attracting the attention of thoughtful Chileans, has called for better housing regulations and schemes for the education of young mothers in infant care. A group of the admirable Club de Señoras, the characteristically Chilean association of wealthy, forceful and intellectual women of Santiago, is working towards the solution of a serious social problem.

Through the force of economic circumstance, the question of the employment of women is not one which is likely to be reconsidered in Chile.

Large groups of men are drawn to isolated camps in the copper and nitrate fields, and there is a resulting tendency for women in the other regions to take up work in factories, public services, etc.

It was the War of the Pacific that brought women into the employ of the street-car companies in Valparaiso and Santiago, for with the men absent in the army there were gaps in the ranks of workers. When the men returned their female supplanters refused to give up their berths, and remained victors. One feels sympathy with their spirited attitude, and, despite the unlovely dress imposed by the German tramway owners in early days (which includes the apron of a _hausfrau_) they make a generally good impression. It is doubtful whether such work is well suited to women; the hours are long—the old (now altered) time schedule kept certain women at work as conductors for fourteen hours a day—and the strain is plainly great upon feminine endurance.

Employment in the Chilean post-offices is not within the same category, but one becomes in South America so well accustomed to the general and graceful habit of service to women that a certain mental adjustment is required before one becomes inured to receiving service from them. If the far-famed Chilean politeness, a genial flame of nation-wide brightness, suffers an occasional eclipse, it is almost invariably due to the widespread employment of women.

PROVINCES AND POPULATION OF CHILE

_Province_ _Departments_ _Area in _Population, Sq. Census of Kilometres_ December, 1920_ Tacna Tacna, Arica, Tarata 23,306 38,902 Tarapacá Tarapacá, Pisagua 43,220 100,533 Antofagasta Antofagasta, Tocopilla, Taltal 120,183 172,330 Atacama Copiapó, Chañaral, Freirina, 79,531 48,413 Vallenar Coquimbo La Serena, Elqui, Ovalle, 36,509 160,256 Coquimbo, Combarbalá, Illapel Aconcagua San Felipe, Petorca, Putaendo, La 14,000 116,914 Ligua, Los Andes Valparaiso Valparaiso, Quillota, Limache, 4,598 320,398 Casablanca Santiago Santiago, La Victoria, Melipilla, 15,260 685,358 San Antonio O’Higgins Rancagua, Cachapoal, Maipo 5,617 118,591 Colchagua San Fernando, Caupolicán 9,973 166,342 Curicó Curicó, Santa Cruz, Vichuquén 7,885 108,148 Talca Talca, Lontué, Curepto 10,006 133,957 Maule Cauquenes, Constitución, Chanco, 7,281 113,231 Itatá Linares Linares, Loncomilla, Parral 10,279 119,284 Ñuble Chillán, San Carlos, Bulnes, 9,050 170,425 Yungay Concepción Concepción, Coelemu, Talcahuano, 8,579 247,611 Puchacai, Lautaro, Rere Arauco Lebu, Arauco, Cañete 5,668 60,233 Bio-Bio La Laja, Nascimiento, Mulchen 13,863 107,072 Malleco Angol, Collipulli, Traiguen, 8,555 121,429 Mariluán Cautín Temuco, Imperial, Llaima 16,524 193,628 Valdivia Valdivia, Villarica, La Unión, Rio 23,285 175,141 Bueno Llanquihue Llanquihue, Osorno, Carelmapu 90,066 137,206 Chiloé Ancud, Quinchao, Castro 18,074 110,331 Territory of Magallanes 169,251 28,960 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── =Total Chilean Territory= =750,572= =3,754,723=

[Illustration: POLITICAL MAP OF CHILE RAILROAD MAP OF CHILE]

CHILEAN TERMS

_Aji_: small red peppers, highly aromatic, grown in the northerly regions; used extensively in Chilean cooking.

_Alerce_: a tall conifer of South Chile; fine lumber. _Alerzal_, a wood of _alerce_ trees.

_Algarroba_: the sweet pod of the minosa-like Algarrobo tree (North).

_Algarrobo_: (al carob, Arabic), term applied by Spanish to small thorny tree bearing pods used as cattle fodder (North).

_Antofagastino_: native of Antofagasta.

_Arenal_: sand desert, sand-laden wind.

_Atacameño_: native of Atacama.

_Avellano_: small tree (Central and South) yielding the avellana, a soft-shelled nut resembling the hazel.

_Bolas_: throwing weapon used by mounted cattlemen or hunters; long pliable rope or hide thong with heavy weights at either end, flung in such a manner that it enwraps and twists about the legs of the animal pursued.

_Boldo_: a small tree yielding the drug _boldaina_.

_Boquete_: a mountain pass.

_Brasero_: deep dish or bowl, usually made of copper or silver, filled with charcoal and heated for cooking purposes or to warm a room.

_Butre_: smallest wild bamboo.

_Cajón_: a gap in the high mountains.

_Caliche_: strata containing nitrate of soda.

_Camanchaca_: fog or mist over the northern plains.

_Cancha_: depot (for ores, North); gun-park; tennis-court.

_Candeal_: hard brown wheat of the southerly provinces.

_Canelo_: sweet-smelling small tree (Central Chile), the “South American cinnamon.”

_Capacho_: bag used for carrying ore, made of hide.

_Capataz_: foreman of workers.

_Carbonado_: a Chilean soup.

_Cardón_: applied to various thistles and especially to the big blue-flowered _Cynara cardunculus_, growing through Central and South Chile, but the term is also used for many spiny plants and leaves, for the wild artichoke and the thorny leaves of the Puya.

_Cateo_: the search for a mine.

_Cazuela_: thick stew, made with chicken, rice, potatos, aji, etc.

_Chacolí_: country wine, lightly fermented.

_Chacra_: a small cultivated plot of land.

_Chagual_: applied generally to _Puya chilensis_ or _Puya coarctata_, growing freely from the sea-border to Andean slopes in all Central Chile: the tall spike of blue, or in other varieties yellow flowers is the “chagual,” while the spiny leaf is called “cardón” and the big thorns used as knitting-needles; the flowers are gathered for their honey.

_Chaucha_: twenty centavo piece.

_Chañar_: small tree (North), yielding date-like fruit. _Chañaral_, group of chañar trees.

_Charqui_: dried meat (“jerked” beef).

_Charquican_: Chilean dish made with charqui.

_Chicha_: heavy liquor made from grapes or apples; formerly made from wild berries by Indians of Chile.

_Chileno_ (a): native of Chile.

_Chillehueque_: Araucanian name for the Guanaco.

_Chilote_: native of Chiloé.

_Chinchilla_: small fur-bearing rodent, today scarce and valuable.

_Chingana_: wattled booths set up at fairs for the assembly of musicians and dancers.

_Choapino_: saddle-cloth, woven of thick black-dyed wool (South).

_Choclo_: maize.

_Cholo_: a Peruvian. Cf. _Godo_, a Spaniard; _Gabacho_, Frenchman.

_Chonta_: palm growing on Más a Tierra island (Juan Fernandez group), yielding a fine wood of which walking sticks and canes are made, prized for the bright yellow and black pattern of the wood. The young head of the palm is cooked and eaten as a “cabbage.”

_Choros_: large mussels found off Chilean coast, eaten in great quantities.

_Chuño_: arrowroot; or frozen and dried potatoes.

_Chuso_: a stupid fellow.

_Cochayuyo_: sea-weed, stewed in the south for soup, like _luche_.

_Coihue_, _Coigüe_: large tree (South), yielding hardwood and a red dye.

_Colihue_: wild bamboo. _Colihual_, bamboo thicket.

_Condor_: giant vulture (Sarcoramphus) of the Andes, ringed with white about the neck. Appears on Chilean coat-of-arms together with the native deer _huemul_. Araucanian name, _manqui_.

_Congrio_: a Chilean fish, generally liked; as also is the _corbina_, _robalo_ and delicate _pejerey_.

_Copihue_: wild vine with a large, rosy bell. The national flower of Chile.

_Coquimbano_ (a): native of Coquimbo.

_Cueca_: a popular soup.

_Cueca_, or _sama-cueca_: the Chilean national dance.

_Culén_ (_Cytisus Arboreus_): prophylactic against witchcraft: leaves dried to make a medicinal tea and gum from stalks; well known as a vermifuge.

_Cupilca_: thick liquid or thin paste made with toasted and powdered wheat or maize and mixed with chicha or chacolí.

_Curado_: “half seas over.”

_Curanto_: Indian dish of meat and vegetables, originally cooked in a stone-lined hole in the ground.

_Cuyano_: a native of the Argentine. Properly, applied to one born in the old province of Cuyo, formerly including the then Chilean provinces of Mendoza, San Juan and San Luis, but used familiarly of any one born in Argentina.

_Despacho_: shop or store on an estate or mine where goods are sold to employés.

_Empanada_: a paté, filled with chopped meat, onions, gravy, etc., and served hot.

_Estrada_: raised bench generally built across the end of a living room, used in colonial days as a seat for all the ladies of the family.

_Fernandecino_ (a): native of the Juan Fernandez group of islands.

_Floripondio_: large white pendant flowers of the _Datura arborea_, growing as a fairly large tree in Chile. Infusions yield the _huanto_, a drugging drink used in regions of Quechua influence by witch-doctors to obtain insensibility and visions; _huanto_ is similar in effect to the _natema_ of Amazonian headwaters; _caapi_ of Eastern Ecuador, and _ayahuasca_ of Peru.

_Fundo_: a general farm. _Fundo de rulo_, a non-irrigated farm.

_Futre_: a pretentious person; in copper mines, a ghost or imp.

_Garúa_: fine rain, like a “Scotch mist” (North).

_Guachuchero_: a liquor-smuggler (mining regions).

_Guagua_: a baby (Araucanian Indian).

_Guaira_, _guairachina_: little smelters built on hilltop to catch the breeze.

_Gualcacho_: (Araucanian) plant yielding a small native grain similar to but more delicate than maize.

_Gualhue_: (Araucanian) damp ground, usually near a river, suitable for maize cultivation.

_Guanaco_: ruminant quadruped, still found in considerable numbers in the wild mountainous regions, all the way from the Bolivian border to Tierra del Fuego. Rugs and coverings made of the thick tawny hair, and the flesh eaten by Indians. In Ch. slang, a “guanaco” is a country bumpkin, a “hayseed.”

_Guaso_, _huaso_: a cowboy (Central Chile).

_Guemul_, _huemul_: the native deer of Chilean woodland.

_Hacer-se Sueco_: to be unintelligible.

_Huacho_: properly, a motherless calf, but applied to any waif.

_Huasca_: a whip: originally applied to a supple creeper or liana of the forests, used as a cord or thong.

_Humita_: maize paste.

_Inquilino_: farm-worker on a Chilean estate, on special conditions. Usually given free house, land for cultivation, rations, small wages, and use of implements.

_Invernado_: wintering-place for cattle.

_Litre_: a tree used for fuel. Leaves poisonous, affecting persons in the tree’s shade.

_Llareta_ (_Lareta acaulis_): umbelliferous plant of low growth, spreading to an enormous size like a giant mushroom: grows in uplands of Tacna and Antofagasta, and is cut, dried on lower slopes, and brought down to inhabited regions to serve as fuel.

_Luche_: sea-weed used for making stews.

_Lumo_: a large tree supplying good timber.

_Machí_: medicine-woman of the Araucanians.

_Maitén_: tree with white wood. Leaves infused to obtain a febrifuge.

_Mampato_: the small Chilean pony.

_Manco_: properly, a one-armed man, but applied to broken-down horses.

_Manta_: a finely-woven poncho, often of alpaca or vicuña wool. _Manto_, black shawl worn by women when attending church services.

_Mineral_: a mineral reef or group of mines.

_Molle_: small tree with sweet-scented flowers and medicinal berries, formerly used by Indians for making chicha.

_Paco_: slang term for a policeman.

_Palqui_: plant yielding mauve or yellow flowers: ashes used in soap-making.

_Pampa_: a plain. _Pampas salitreras_, nitrate fields.

_Panqui_ or _Pangui_ (_Gunnera peltata_): plant with large rhubarb-like leaves, yielding a black dye and tannin. Grows in great quantities upon the islands of Juan Fernandez. _Pangal_, a mass of Pangui plants.

_Penquisto_: native of Penco: applied to inhabitants of Concepción City, the former Penco, or of Concepción province.

_Pirquén_: system by which the miner (pirquenero) works a vein on his own account, paying a royalty on production.

_Politiquero_: a professional politician: used derogatively.

_Porotos_: beans.

_Porteño_: native of “the port”: usually, of Valparaiso.

_Pudu_: the miniature deer of South Chile.

_Pulpería_: store at a mine or nitrate oficina.

_Puno_: mountain sickness due to rarefied air: more commonly called _soroche_ in Peru and Bolivia.

_Puntarrense_: native of Punta Arenas.

_Puya_ (Puya chilensis, formerly listed as Pourretia coarctata): group of plants common in Chile, belonging to the genus Bromeliacrae, different varieties bearing light or dark blue or yellow flowers arranged in a huge spike; large orange stamens. The spiny leaves form a thick rosette at the base, in a form similar to that of the related pineapple. Feature of landscape in Central Chile, on spurs of hills. The light pith of the mature stem of the tall flower-spike, more buoyant than cork, is used for fishing floats and for sharpening razors.

_Quelghen_: the Chilean native strawberry, remains white when ripe, very sweet.

_Quila_: the small climbing bamboo of the South.

_Quillay_: a tree yielding a saponaceous bark much used in Chile.

_Quintral_: a beautiful scarlet-blossomed parasite upon poplar and other trees.

_Quisco_ (_Cereus quisco_): columnar cactus of Central and northerly Chile, called “torch thistle”; thorns used as needles; grows 12 to 18 ft.

_Raule_: a fine timber tree with red wood.

_Robie_: properly, oak, but applied to the Chilean beeches (South).

_Roto_: a “ragged man,” originally: now applied to any worker.

_Salitre_: nitrate of soda.

_Santiaguino_ (a): native of Santiago.

_Siutico_: “low-class” person; same meaning as _mediopelo_.

_Soroche_: See _Puno_.

_Tajamar_: wall or bank built to restrain the flood of sea or river; that of the Mapocho river a famous promenade in Santiago.

_Templados_: people in love; same meaning as _encamotados_.

_Ulmo_: drink made of parched and ground corn or maize (Indian).

_Valdiviano_: a native of Valdivia; also name of a vegetable soup.

_Ventisqueros_: glaciers; frequently driven by wind into frozen snow pinnacles, commonly called in Chile “nieves penitentes.”

_Williwaw_: a squall in Magellanic territory (Scots).

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

59 the Spaniards troubling that the Spaniards troubling that region given up. The region gave up. The

105 became Lady Calcroft and became Lady Callcott and published a perennially published a perennially

187 Work on the Portrerillos Work on the Potrerillos installation was suspended installation was suspended

213 Chiléo’s 134 inches; the genial Chiloé’s 134 inches; the genial softness of the climate softness of the climate

221 The evergreen beech (_Fagus The evergreen beech (_Fagus antarticus_) flourishes in antarcticus_) flourishes in

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Used numbers for footnotes. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=.