Bones to Rest

The armies of Peru's Incas marched again & again during the 15th Century deep down into the narrow strip of coast that was even then called Chile, to conquer the proud Araucanian Indians. Pizarro's men took the job over, passed it on to generations of Spanish soldiers who tramped in, left behind broods of half-breeds, tramped out again. When Chile broke away from Spain in 1817, she went on trying to conquer the Araucanian in his southern provinces of Malleco and Cautin. Not until 1882 when some of the Araucanians who called themselves Mapuches turned against their kinsmen was the Araucanian conquered.

One of the Mapuche warrior chiefs who led his braves against the Araucanian, again against Argentine invaders from across the lesser Andes of the south, was venerable Jacinto Lefignir Ineleu, then 68 years old. Last week, 120 years old,

Chief Ineleu felt that he was ready to die but Chilean law commands that the dead be buried in authorized municipal cemeteries. By a kinsman he sent a message to Chile's blue-eyed President Arturo Alessandri. Spoke he with grave dignity: "I am the last of the Mapuche warrior chiefs and I have served you well. It is not right that my aged bones should be laid to rest among Christians. They belong in the place called Auquell near Cunco in the province of Cautin."

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