Chile Forum

This is an aerial photo of a Mapuche gathering from about 2 years ago. The harvest in Southern CHile is beginning for the Mapuche. The triangular area is sacred ground and no huinca can stand on it. A Mapuche elder lives near this spot and tends it. When he feels the time is right he goes to a nearby hill and blows a cacho from a goat. THis signals that all the men from the Mapuche communidad will gather and give thanks to mother earth before she gives forth the harvest. They come in ox carts and bring the material to make "rucas" around the sacred area. The burn the sacred tree and leaves(can't remember the name...but let me make a comment...most of the time when I can't remember the word, it is because I am not in the contest of being in Chile or being with CHileans...otherwise it just comes out)...anyway...they drink CHicha for three days street and I believe are not allowed to sleep or its more that as part of the ceremony they do not sleep. There are only men and the women wait at home. THey literaly bloat up from the chicha...one is un-able to distinquish individual fingers on the hand as the swelling is that intense. Chicha is ceremonial for the Mapuche and so most community leaders die of liver failure when they are around 45 or so....

WHen the cacho is blown, word travels outward to the outlying areas by word of mouth...everyone is listening for it and so they go and sleep there for the three days. No white man should go near it as you would most likely get torn apart...literaly, torn apart.....The Mapuche community is divided into clans of about 50 to 70 people each and then the community is of a given area...the clans usually have the same last name or ending...each clan and community has a hiearchy of leaders that would be what you imagine...chief or lider>politcal and a different one that is spiritual...healers of different types...Mapuche society is matriarchal but then it isn't...anyway the guy that blows the cacho is "seperate " from the community...he leads the ceremony....there is a hole in the ground on this property by which mother earth breaths through....they will make a fire of the sacred tree/leaves near by and the hole will actually breath in the smoke into the earth by which they know the harvest is sanctioned and mother earth is pleased...on the third day they go home to and usually have a lamb feast with the family and sleep for 3 or so days to come "down"...then they begin the harvest.

I do not think there is another photo of this ceremony(unless taken by a Mapuche...but I doubt it)...very difficult to get.


P out


I should say that the circle in green at the outside edge are the rucas...there is an area that is alone that is mother earths' breathing hole and then there is a line of men surrounding a fire/smoke area where they are taking "communion" and working ever closer to the hole so that mother earth can breath the smoke of the ceremony....


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I could be wrong, but I believe the tree is called Paulo Santo by Chileans. The wood has a wonderful, almost sandlewood smell when it is burned.

Nice, interesting, informative article.

Truly an amazing culture. We should be glad that all those years ago the Mapuche warriors fought so hard against the Spaniards to preserve their land and their culture. I was in Chiloe over a year ago and had the fortune of sharing a curanto with a Mapuche family. Really makes me sad to think of all the lost culture in the modern day US from the slaughter of the natives.

The sacred tree for mapuches is -if my memory don´t fail- el canelo

There was a saying in my old days in Chiloé "estan quemando leña de canelo" referred to making some very luxurious or preparing a very expensive meal

Hi Tom and El P. You know, I wasn't sure about the tree...and I've tried to look this up on the web, but found little that I could identify as what I always thought of as the Mapuche scared tree. The wood from the Mapuche tree - as I have always understood it, is aromatic. The wood chips I got in Santiago at the Mapuche museum burns and smells almost like sandlewood. Is this the same? Does anyone have pictures of the three, or info on it? there are some downed trees on our property that when burned smell like sandlewood, but I've yet to identify it, or relate it to the tree my neighbors tell me is the Paulo Santo. so I may be entirely off-base. Hope you can add something to this....

Vicki

Traditionally the indians planted a CANELO tree (Drimys Winteri) with every child born as a symbol of peace. Especially the leaves and the bark of the Canelo tree is and was used in local medicine long ago. They ate the powder of the bark for stomaches and made teas from leaves and bark to treat headaches, stomaches pain, high temperature, curvy and tiredness. Canelo is known as the cinnamon tree, the sacred tree of the Mapuche Indians is also considered as one of the most ancient angiosperms of the planet. Adding Canelo leaves to your bath is very efficient to treat any rheumatic pain.


The tree you are referring as "Paulo Santo"is correctly named Palo Santo (Spanish, "holy wood")(Bulnesia sarmientoi ) .Palo santo is appreciated for the skin-healing properties of its essence and also because it provides good charcoal and a high quality timber. It ignites easily despite being so dense, and produces a fragrant smoke. Natives of the Chaco region employ the bark to treat stomach problems.

Having heard that Palo Santo wood was used to make vessels to ferment wine in Paraguay, Dogfish Head Brewery imported 20 blocks of it to create the Palo Santo Marron beer. They added the wood blocks to the fermenters during the aging process and ended up with a sweet 12% abv, highly roasty, and malty wood aged brown ale.

No matter how hard I try, I'm always ending up in beer!!!

http://www.dogfish.com/brewings/Occasional_Rarities/Palo_Santo_Marron/51/index.htm

The best known species in the genus is Bulnesia arborea : its wood is traded together with that of Bulnesia sarmientoi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulnesia_sarmientoi

So.....we're talking about two distinct trees, and I was misinformed. I will look up the true Mapuche tree on the internet. Thanks for all the great inside info, and clarification!

Vicki

Here is a recording of a story about "La Pichinrruca"...and a Mapuche curse that befel her...Lo que cuenta el viento....is an old radio show from radio portales that played every day at noon time and usually had stories played out that were...leyendas like this...the southern Chilean accents are the best...especialy if you can pick out the Mapuche influenced ones...so distinctly Patagonian....you have to be good friends for this accent to come out....


http://www.esnips.com:80/doc/6320923f-d ... ichinrruca


good luck,


p out

interesting...the story of la Pichinrruca takes place I think on the other side of volcan Villarrica, where the above photo is taken on the opposite side...listen for the accent as in this region there is a point in the sentence where the speaker breathes in to make sound, but only at a certain part and at certain times...usually sound is only made on the breath out...as well the sound is made richer by "dragging" air over the lips with the mouth mouth partialy closed and the tongue closed off somewhat on the roof of the mouth, and the loose saliva makes a "gravely, loose rock in the river sound..."...very distinct...you can almost pinpoint what side of the volcan they live on with that sound....


p


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Lo que cuenta el viento! It was a very old show in the golden years of radio Portales, your post bring to me nice memories from my chilhood!

I've read that over 20 Mapuche protesters have been killed in the past 18 months in violent confrontations with Chilean police. I wonder if anyone here has opinions of what's going on, and how the Mapuche are perceived in Chile. My impression is that they seem looked down upon, ridiculed, and patronized. But I can't adequately read Spanish, so have no way to research newspapers, or websites that might have differing opinions, so that I might form my own and I'd really like to hear what some others think.

I bought a postcard in Santiago last year, to keep, and think about the subject matter. It was a picture of a group of Mapuches, inside a fence, maybe 30 or more, in a botanical garden museum in France. This was in the early 1900's. The French had taken them there and put them on display (much like the US did at the Smithsonian, I suppose). And I thought, how/why do we do that to people?!

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown. I made my children read it, and then I made my parents read it! How can we not know these histories? I don't know. But we certainly seem destined to repeat alot of things we won't be very proud of. The Ona are gone, as are so many other cultures, whether by our hand and bugs, or just by natural design. Okay, that's all I have to say! Love to hear any and all comments.

Vicki

One is tempted to be Darwinian: survival of the fittest.

Thank goodness that I'm not Darwinian! But I am largely ignorant of the situation of the Mapuche. My sole Mapuchean friends -- a middle-aged couple -- firmly believe that assimilation into the Chilean mainstream culture is not only desireable but inevitable. I'm not about to tell them that many of us think they'll lose anything by ceasing to be picturesque for us.

As for these violent clashes: I've been aware of such for the best part of a decade but don't know anything extraordinary about the current series. With conflicting desires and goals between the folk Mapuche and the great bulk of the growing Chilean population, these seem, sadly, to be inevitable. I hope that they are not.

"Conflicto mapuche" appeared in 1990 when government begun to purchase land to give for free to "communities". All this process was quickly corrupted due the lot of millions involved so, the government officers started to purchase camps heavily overpriced and many non profit organizations appeared to receive those camps as "communities", over time the NPO begun to conflict with government and they finality broke.

The NPO was directed by activist from extreme left who begun to receive money and grants from Europe organizations related with separatist movements there. So there was a strong involvment with people from ETA basque separatists (some ETA people was living here and making political activism)

Most of conflicto mapuche has nothing to do with mapuches, there are a lot of huinca and foreign activists who earn good money feeding the conflict, and -as always- they are followed for some entusiastic idealistic kids from extreme left who are used as "carne de cañon"

Very interesting Tom, thank you for providing a difference viewpoint. As I said before, I wish I could read Spanish better so I could have a better overview of the subject.

Remember that Pinochet was appointed "Gran Lonko" by mapuche communities during the military, and there was no protest nor violence in mapuche lands during those years unlike the social unrest in rest of the country, in mapuche areas right wing parties win consistently elections, and concertation politicians refer to mapuches as "ingratos".

There are also huge lands of property of politicians and the catholic church in the mapuche area, those are hidded faces of the conflict

This is a sub-topic regarding the other indigenous people of Patagonia (other than the Mapuche). It seems relevant in the history and evolution of progress in Patagonia and how it changed the face of the land and the people. There are interesting links to transcriptions of diaries from explorers and the always well-meaning yet destructive missionaries of long ago. Amazing stuff really...check out all the links, great and startling photos. Links to languages.

http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/t ... uelche.htm