Patterns of Alcohol Consumption among the Mapuche

Two great cultural patterns of alcohol consumption have been defined by Mandelbaum. According to this conception, much of Africa and Latin America have basically different drinking habits. Thus, among many African groups, men tend to drink frequently but without intoxication or loss of control; they incline instead toward lengthy states of tipsiness. The Latin American pattern, on the other hand, allows or requires men to drink steadily into a state of stupefaction. Drinking is social, often done when there is a religious celebration, but not so much poured out for the supernaturals as poured into the celebrants, and always done at fiestas. Though drinking is frequent and heavy, no problem of addiction arises. This pattern has been remarkably consistent through time and place. . . . It is followed in contemporary societies, both Indian and Mestizo, from Mexico to Chile, in highlands and lowlands. Numerous examples from the Latin American anthropological literature bear out this model. The present report i

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