Chile and the Malpuche

According to 17th-century Spanish chronicler Diego de Rosales, the Incas called the valley of the Aconcagua “Chili” by corruption of the name of a Picunche tribal chief (“cacique“) called Tili, who ruled the area at the time of the Incan conquest in the 15th century.

Another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua with that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where there was a town and valley named Chili.

Other theories say Chile may derive its name from a Native American word meaning either “ends of the earth” or “sea gulls”; from the Mapuche word chilli, which may mean “where the land ends;”or from the Quechua chiri, “cold”, or tchili, meaning either “snow” or “the deepest point of the Earth”. Another origin attributed to chilli is the onomatopoeic cheele-cheele—the Mapuche imitation of the warble of a bird locally known as trile.

Ultimately, Almagro is credited with the universalization of the name Chile, after naming the Mapocho valley as such.

The older spelling “Chili” was in use in English until at least 1900 , before switching to “Chile“.

Early history

Mapuche, the most numerous group of Indians in South America.

Settlement sites from very early human habitation include Monte Verde, Cueva del Milodón and the Pali-Aike Crater’s lava tube.

Native Mapuche people lived in the southern and central regions before the country became a Spanish colony.

The northern part of the country was ruled by the Inca before the Spanish took control in the 16th century.

The Mapuche (or Araucanians as they were known by the Spaniards) successfully resisted many attempts by the Inca Empire to subjugate them, despite their lack of state organization.

They fought against the Sapa Inca Tupac Yupanqui and his army.

The result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the  Battle of the Maule.

They numbered more than 1,400,000 at the turn of the 21st century. Most inhabit the Central Valley of Chile, south of the Biobío River.

A smaller group lives in Neuquén provincia, west-central Argentina.

Historically known as Araucanians, the Mapuche were one of three groups—Picunche, Mapuche, Huilliche—identified by Spanish ethnographers.

All Araucanians now identify themselves as Mapuche.

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In the pre-Spanish period, the Mapuche lived in scattered farming villages throughout the Central Valley.

Each settlement had a cacique, or chief, whose authority did not generally extend beyond his own village.

The Mapuche cultivated corn (maize), beans, squash, potatoes, chili peppers, and other vegetables and fished, hunted, and kept guinea pigs for meat.

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They kept llamas as pack animals and as a source of wool.

A man’s wealth was reckoned in terms of the size of his llama herd.

The traditional home of the Mapuche people; the north-central Chaco region inhabited by peoples such as

the Toba, Maká, and Guaraní; and the Misiones region of northeastern Argentina (and part of Paraguay), home to the Mbyá.

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Only the Mapuche of Argentina have been extensively studied by  music researchers, in regaurds to their ceremonial drum called the kultrún

from a wooden bowl covered by leather and a shaman places various objects inside the body of the kultrún, such as small rocks, feathers, or healing herbs.

Some Mapuche practice witchcraft -they believe some  young women take up sorcery

who become powerful witches and can use “bad medicine” to obtain their ends

which are aligned with evil force the witches use  to harm or gain advantage over others.…

The Mapuche culture in Chile, relates tales characterized by fairly long narratives about such supernatural characters:

as Shooting Star, who may be a cannibal, a hybrid monster, a winged serpent, a ghost, or an apparition.

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As to their cosmology and religion, crucial to their worldview was the belief in a creator called ngenechen, embodied under four aspects: an older man, an older woman, a young man and a young woman.

The Mapuche, moreover, believe in the existence of different worlds, which are called Wenu Mapu and Minche Mapu.

Corollary to this belief is the notion of spirits that inhabit and share the natural world with humans and animals, though in a parallel dimension.

Spiritual practices are informed by daily circumstances or situations instead of following some general pattern or sets of rules.

A widely known Mapuche religious ceremony is the Ngillatun, which is rendered as “to pray” or “general prayer.”

These religious activities are commonly major communal events which are assigned high spiritual and social value.

However, not all these ceremonies are for communal or public participation and are at times limited to family.

As we find in many cultures, the Mapuche have a flood myth, in which the world is annihilated and regenerated.

The myth maintains that there are two opposing powers: water and dry earth, which also brings sunshine.

 In the deluge almost all humanity perishes, and the few who survive do so by resorting to cannibalism.

In the end, only a couple is left and amachi tells them that the only way to restore order is to give their only child to the waters.

Prayer and ritual were believed by the Mapuche to uphold the cosmic balance necessary for life. 

The central deities or spirits in the Mapuche pantheon are Pillan and Wangulen (ancestral spirits), and Ngen (nature spirits), and finally, wekufe (evil spirits). With these religious beliefs and spiritual practices comes the essential role of the shaman or machi.

Traditionally this role has been occupied by women.

To become a shaman, one must undergo apprenticeship with an older machi. 

The role of this shaman is to cure illnesses, ward of evil spirits, affect the weather favorably, as well as positively influence harvests, aid social interaction, and do dreamwork. 

Machi also have a big body of knowledge pertaining to medicinal plants.

In the present, due to a decline of biodiversity as a result of commercial farming and forestry, this knowledge has begun to decline, though efforts are underway to revive this knowledge with its associated practices.

 Machis also have an intimate knowledge of sacred stones and animals.

To resist the Spanish in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the Mapuche reorganized their traditional way of life.

Widely separated villages formed military, political, and economic alliances; Mapuche warriors learned to use the horse against the Spanish; and Mapuche leaders such as Lautaro emerged as innovative and effective strategists.

In the 1800s, after Chile became independent of Spain, the Chilean government settled the Mapuche on reservations.

For more than 100 years, the Mapuche held and farmed the reservation land collectively,

and individual Mapuche could not lose their land to creditors.

Today the situation of the Mapuches in Chile is still vulnerable.

Chile is a strongly pronounced class society where the Mapuches belong to the lowest class.

All through history, the State carried on strategies to assimilate the Mapuches into the Chilean society.

In the early 1980s, the Pinochet era, transferred ownership of reservation land to individual Mapuche,

who now stand to lost their property and their means of livelihood if they are unable to repay debts.

Since the Mapuche have never practiced a highly intensive or productive form of agriculture, t

hey were often forced to go into debt to buy agricultural supplies and crop seeds.

During the Pinochet era, all Mapuche land was privatised and to a large extent sold out to wealthy landlords and foreigners.

Pinochet also introduced new laws, which declared that there were “no indigenous people in Chile, only Chileans“.

The loss of a large quantity of their land resulted in migration to the big cities.

Mapuches who move to the cities soon forget their culture in order to be able to get a place in the society.

They faced difficulties in getting jobs and  education so were paid less paid than their Chilean colleagues.

It is not an uncommon phenomenon to change a Mapuche name into a Chilean, and avoid passing on Mapudungun to the children,

in order to get a chance to climb the social ladder.

Chilehas  taken another standpoint towards the indigenous people. In 1993 the Indigenous Act, Ley Indígena (no 19.253), was introduced, which  provided protection, promotion and development of the indigenous groups in Chile.

With this law the indigenous cannot be forced to move from their land.

If the Government or a company wants to move indigenous from one place to another, they have to offer a piece of equal land.

This is called the permuta.

If the owner does not accept the permuta, no transfer can take place.

According to the law, if only one single person does not agree, there cannot be an agreement.

Besides establishing the Indigenous Act, CONADI (Corporación Nacional de Desarollo Indígena) was formed.

It is a state authority, with both Chilean and indigenous representatives,

task is to control that the cultural development of indigenous people is protected, provided and respected.

Its duty is also to conserve Mapuche land, so that it is being used in a proper way, that will say maintain an ecological balance.

For the first time in Chile’s history, it is officially accepted that Chile is a multiethnic society.

At the same time however, Chile has a high pressure to develop fast according to the neo-liberal model.

Large-scale development projects, which were initiated during the Pinochet era, go on today.

There are roads being built through Mapuche areas, the forest is being felled in at fast speed and big power plants are being constructed in the rivers.

When it comes to these large-scale projects the Mapuches still feel infringed on their historical and cultural rights.

When the Europeans arrived, the Mapuche set out to organize and build networks of forts and intricate defensive buildings.

They also built ceremonial structures such as the earthwork mounds found near Purén, and adopted iron-metal working (they had experience with copper).

They learned cavalry in war and horseback-riding; in addition, they learned to grow and cultivate wheat and sheep.

Since the Mapuche lacked a writing system, they did not leave us with any literature but always had a strong oral tradition to supplement for this lack.

But later on, Mapundungun was developed as a writing system, and the Mapuche have written in both Spanish and Mapudungun.

Contemporary Mapuche literature combines both these languages, and have even produced poets and writers, some notable ones include Pedro Alonzo, Elicura Chihuailaf, and Leonel Lienlaf.

In 1520, while attempting to circumnavigate the globe, Ferdinand Magellan discovered the southern passage now named after him (the Strait of Magellan) thus becoming the first European to set foot on what is now Chile.

The next Europeans to reach Chile were Diego de Almagro and his band of Spanish conquistadors, who came from Peru in 1535 seeking gold.

The Spanish encountered various cultures that supported themselves principally through slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting.

Although the Spanish did not find the extensive gold and silver they sought, they recognized the agricultural potential of Chile’s central valley, and Chile became part of the Spanish Empire.

Conquest took place gradually, and the Europeans suffered repeated setbacks.

A massive Mapuche insurrection that began in 1553 resulted in Valdivia’s death and the destruction of many of the colony’s principal settlements.

Subsequent major insurrections took place in 1598 and in 1655.

Each time the Mapuche and other native groups revolted, the southern border of the colony was driven northward.

The abolition of slavery by the Spanish crown in 1683 was done in recognition that enslaving the Mapuche intensified resistance rather than cowing them into submission.

Despite royal prohibitions, relations remained strained from continual colonialist interference.

Cut off to the north by desert, to the south by the Mapuche, to the east by the Andes Mountains, and to the west by the ocean, Chile became one of the most centralized, homogeneous colonies in Spanish America.

Serving as a sort of frontier garrison, the colony found itself with the mission of forestalling encroachment by

both the Mapuche and Spain’s European enemies, especially the British and the Dutch.

Buccaneers and English adventurers menaced the colony in addition to the Mapuche, as was shown

by Sir Francis Drake‘s 1578 raid on Valparaíso, the colony’s principal port.

Chile hosted one of the largest standing armies in the Americas, making it one of the most militarized of the possessions, as well as a drain on the treasury of the Viceroyalty of Peru.

Francisco Hurtado, Governor of the province of Chiloé, conducted a census in 1784 and found the population consisted of 26,703 inhabitants,

64.4 percent of whom were whites and 33.5

Independence and nation building

In 1808, Napoleon’s enthronement of his brother Joseph as the Spanish King precipitated the drive by the colony for independence from Spain.

A national junta in the name of Ferdinand – heir to the deposed king – was formed on 18 September 1810.

The Government Junta of Chile proclaimed Chile an autonomous republic within the Spanish monarchy (in memory of this day, Chile celebrates its National Day

After these events, a movement for total independence, under the command of José Miguel Carrera (one of the most renowned patriots) and his two brothers Juan José and Luis Carrera, soon gained a wider following.

Spanish attempts to re-impose arbitrary rule during what was called the Reconquista led to a prolonged struggle, including infighting from Bernardo O’Higgins, who challenged Carrera’s leadership.

Intermittent warfare continued until 1817.

With Carrera in prison in Argentina, O’Higgins and anti-Carrera cohort José de San Martín, hero of the Argentine War of Independence,

led an army that crossed the Andes into Chile and defeated the royalists.

On 12 February 1818, Chile was proclaimed an independent republic.

The political revolt brought little social change, however, and 19th-century Chilean society preserved the essence of the stratified colonial social structure, which was greatly influenced by family politics and the Roman Catholic Church.

A strong presidency eventually emerged, but wealthy landowners remained powerful.

Chile slowly started to expand its influence and to establish its borders. By the Tantauco Treaty, the archipelago of Chiloé was incorporated in 1826.

The economy began to boom due to the discovery of silver ore in Chañarcillo, and the growing trade of the port of Valparaíso, which led to conflict over maritime supremacy in the Pacific with Peru.

At the same time, attempts were made to strengthen sovereignty in southern Chile intensifying penetration into Araucanía and colonizing Llanquihue with German immigrants in 1848.

Through the founding of Fort Bulnes by the Schooner Ancud under the command of John Williams Wilson, the Magallanes region joined the country in 1843, while the Antofagasta region, at the time part of Bolivia, began to fill with people.

Toward the end of the 19th century, the government in Santiago consolidated its position in the south

by the Occupation of Araucanía. The Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina confirmed Chilean sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan.

As a result of the War of the Pacific with Peru and Bolivia (1879–83), Chile expanded its territory northward

by almost one-third, eliminating Bolivia’s access to the Pacific, and acquired valuable nitrate deposits, the exploitation of which led to an era of national affluence.

Chile had joined the stand as one of the high-income countries in South America by 1870.

The 1891 Chilean Civil War brought about a redistribution of power between the President and Congress,

and Chile established a parliamentary style democracy.

However, the Civil War had also been a contest between those who favored the development of local industries

and powerful Chilean banking interests, particularly the House of Edwards who had strong ties to foreign investors.

Soon after, the country engaged in a vastly expensive naval arms race with Argentina that nearly led to war.