The Mapuche are the largest indigenous group in Chile. When the Spaniards arrived, they inhabited a large part of southern Chile, divided into subgroups according to geographic area. The first researchers recognized the Picunche, who lived from the Maule River to the Itata and Biobío rivers, the Araucanians, from the latter to the Toltén, the Pehuenche in the mountainous area, from Chillán to Antuco and the Huilliche between the Toltén River and the Gulf of Corcovado, including the island of Chiloé.

In other words, the Mapuche occupied diverse environments and landscapes, ranging from the sub-Andean region to the coast and from warm temperate climates to cold rainy climates, which implied diverse adaptations and consequent cultural differences. The changes that occurred during the Spanish conquest and colony produced a remarkable cultural and, above all, political and social unity of this group and, after the subjugation to the Republic of Chile, a considerable part of this people migrated to the city. In fact, today, most of them live in urban settlements rather than in the countryside, concentrated in the cities of the Araucanía and Metropolitan regions, followed by the Los Lagos and Bío Bío regions.

History

The Mapuche are considered direct descendants of the pre-Hispanic archaeological cultures Pitrén (100 - 1100 years A.D.) and El Vergel (1100 - 1450 years A.D.), which developed in the region between the Bío Bío River and the Reloncaví Seno. However, when the Spaniards arrived, their language, Mapudungun, was widespread from the Choapa River to Chiloé, which does not mean a cultural homogeneity of the different groups that inhabited this extensive territory.

The arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century was apparently the trigger for different populations to group together and strengthen their social and cultural ties, forming the historically known Mapuche identity. The Mapuche rebelled against Spanish subjugation and set fire to the cities they had founded from the Bío Bío River to the south. This rebellion was the beginning of the Arauco War, which forced Spain to maintain a professional army to guard the borders, as well as to recognize Mapuche autonomy in their lands.

The definitive Mapuche subjugation only ended before the Army of the Republic of Chile with the so-called Pacification of Araucania, in 1882. This military action was based on the urgency to conquer exploitable territories, driven by an ideology that advocated the elimination of the indigenous in the name of “civilization”. After the Chilean military triumph and in order to initiate a colonization with Creole and European elements, the indigenous people were controlled by means of their settlement in communal property reductions.

The direct consequences of this process for Mapuche society were the drastic reduction of their lands through repeated and massive usurpations, dependence on an external agent, the State, and social disorganization caused by the loss of authority of the lonkos. As a result of all this, from the beginning of the 20th century, Mapuche action shifted from the military to the political field, from warriors to organizational leaders, from the countryside to the city, with a progressive migration and the emergence of an intellectual and professional elite within Mapuche society.

In 1910, the first indigenous organization in the country, the Caupolicán Society, raised a series of ethnic and peasant petitions. From the 1960s until 1973, the Mapuche participated in the Agrarian Reform, without success, in an attempt to recover their usurped lands. The progressive migration of the Mapuche to the city had begun. At the end of the seventies, almost 70% of the Mapuche people were in the city and in extreme poverty. On a national scale, a capitalist development is consolidated that conceives the so-called ‘indigenous problem’ only as a peasant one. In 1976, the military government, through the Community Division Law, attempts to privatize Mapuche communal property, that is, to transfer it into the hands of individuals.

In the 1980s, the level of poverty among the Mapuche increased, leading to more migration to the city and mestization. Until the early 1990s, indigenous laws were aimed at their incorporation and/or assimilation into Chilean society, a situation that was partially reversed during the period of democracy with the enactment of the Indigenous Law of 1991, which recognizes, protects and promotes the development of ethnic groups in the country. It is estimated that the pre-Hispanic Mapuche population was approximately one million. Today, the Mapuche number more than 600,000 people, corresponding to 87.3% of the country’s indigenous population.

Organization

Until the 16th century, the Mapuche had a patrilineal, polygamous family social organization. In the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century, the chieftainship was strengthened, producing a strong social hierarchy for wartime, where the figure of the toki was born, very functional for the war system. The colonial authorities tried to strengthen the figure of the lonko or community chief, with little success. After the defeat of 1881, a protectorate system was implemented and land was granted to family communities, identifying each one with the name of the cacique or lonko.

Today, the community is a consanguineous group, mostly patrilineal, which stems from the granting of a title of mercy to a chief and his family. There is a relative social homogeneity of its members. The process of internal differentiation is at the limit of the community, imposing a first family and then community solidarity. However, nowadays most of the Mapuche population resides in popular sectors of the big cities of the country, organizing themselves in cultural centers whose main objective is the re-ethnification of the urban generations.

Language

The Mapuche language is Mapudungu (“language of the land”) or Mapudungun (“people’s speech”). Typologically, it is polysynthetic and agglutinative, with a suffixing and highly verbalizing tendency. That is to say, complex words are equivalent to Spanish sentences, for example: katrümamüllmean = “I will go to cut firewood” (mamüll/leña; katrü/cortar, which is done by the subject). When the Spaniards arrived, Mapudungu was in use from Coquimbo to Chiloé and from the mountains to the sea. Today, it is the most widely spoken aboriginal language in Chile with 260,000 native speakers.

The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere

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