MAPUCHE DREAM INTERPRETATION AND ETHNIC...

MAPUCHE:DREAM INTERPRETATION

AND ETHNIC

CONSCIOUSNESS

Lydia Nakashima Degarrod

Portraits TOC

After a series of violent earthquakes, tidal waves, and floodsin southern Chile, María, a novice Mapuche shaman,reported the following dream to members of her commu-

nity:

I felt the water coming out of the lake; the earth was moving.A spirit was telling me to throw branches of maqui to thewater so the waves would recede and the earth stop trem-bling. An older couple came to me, a woman and a man. Theyasked me why the people had not celebrated a ngillatun for along period of time. Where were the people? I saw a lot ofpeople screaming. The old couple told me to have a ngillatun,and that all the people from the community had to assist.Animals had to be sacrificed. The old man had askedNgenechen to kill everyone who was not obeying god, thosewho had forgotten to be Mapuche, those who had not held angillatun with their hearts. Those with heart, the machis,would have the strength and power. Those would survive theearthquake. He asked the people to meditate, and to have angillatun after the earthquake. I cried and cried in my dream.

María reported the dream to her community, and a series ofngillatun—the Mapuche rituals to the ancestors—were performedby members of her community, following the indications of thedream. The message of the dream was obeyed by the communityfor several reasons: María’s status as a peumafe, or good dreamer,based on her shamanic training; the presence in María’s dream ofthe most important gods in the Mapuche pantheon, the old coupleand Ngenechen; and the gravity of the situation. For María thedream was of great importance because it announced the arrival ofher shamanic spirit, the last step in her shamanic training, and pro-vided the reason for the cataclysm—that it was sent to punish theMapuche for disregarding their traditions. The Mapuche hadneglected to celebrate the ngillatun, and the few rituals that wereheld were not performed from the heart, that is, they were lackingin ardor and dedication. María received the shamanic spirit fromher deceased shaman mother soon after the dream, and she wasofficially ordained a shaman in a public ceremony.

The Mapuche believe that cataclysms are sent to them by thegods and their ancestors as a punishment for violating the rules ofthe ad mapu, or natural laws. It is the duty of the shamans andother peumafe to interpret crises and provide moral guidance tothe Mapuche through their dreams. These dream narratives play amajor role in the construction of Mapuche ethnic consciousness;they help define ideal traditional Mapuche behavior in relationship

3

to the Chilean culture and provide guidance to the communitiesduring critical times. By defining the ideal Mapuche behavior inrelationship to the dominant Chilean culture, the Mapuche sepa-rate themselves from the dominant ethnic group. Also, shamanicdream narratives are an expression of the increasing politicalauthority of women shamans throughout the twentieth century.

The data presented here were collected during twentymonths of participant observation—from October 1984 to March1987—in four Mapuche Indian reservation communities in thesouth of Chile. The selection of these communities followed thepresent indigenous classification of the different subgroups andtheir geographical environment (the coastal people, or theLafquenque; the Mapuche, or people of the land; the highlandpeople, or the Pehuenche; and the Huilliche, or the southern peo-ple) and was intended to cover dream interpretation among theMapuche Indians. The four reservations are located on the coast,in the coastal valley, in the eastern highlands, and in the South.On the coast I lived on the reservation of Malalcahuello; in thevalley, the reservation of Lumaco; in the highlands, the reserva-tion of Melipeuco; and in the South, the Island of Huapi. I alsovisited reservations bordering these four home bases. During thetwenty months of fieldwork, I alternated mainly among thesefour communities.

I collected dream narratives from peumafes, and recorded thesettings and contexts in which the dream narratives occurred.Because shamans are considered the most important dreamers,most of the information about peumafe dream narratives camefrom ten shamans located in three of the areas I studied. In addi-tion, I gathered information from other peumafe, the reservationchiefs, and ritual leaders. Since dreams play an important role in thepreparation, organization, and performance of rituals, I participatedin and gathered information from numerous rituals during theperiod of fieldwork. The interviews were conducted in Spanish aswell as in Mapudungun, the native language. The material aboutthe general Mapuche theory also comes from a larger study I con-ducted on Mapuche dream interpretation.

Good rapport was the most important ingredient of the datacollection process, because without being trusted and regarded asa lamgnen, or sister, I could never have done this research. A factorthat initially helped me to establish rapport with the Mapuche wasmy physical appearance. As a woman of Asian and Hispanic ori-gin, I have a strong physical resemblance to the Mapuche. I wasregarded, in their words, as a “Mapuche from the North who had

4 PORTRAITS OF CULTURE

forgotten the Mapuche way.” Their trust and friendship helped meto become part of their daily sharing and interpreting of dreams asjust another member of their families.

This study was influenced by dream research conducted dur-ing the past ten years.1 I subscribed to the notion that societies havetheir own psychological theories that influence their daily behav-ior.2 Of particular importance for this research is the distinctionbetween the dream phenomena and the dream reports.3 Dreamsthemselves are private, whereas dream reports are public. Dreamsare viewed as multimodal experiences that are transformed intonarrative form by the dreamer in the process of recalling the expe-rience. The process of recalling the dream is the first editing. By thetime the dream is told to others it has been edited many times andadjusted to cultural norms. Through the editing process the dreamacquires cultural shape and meaning. Dream narratives cease to beindividual and private; they become shared public experiences.

WHO ARE THE MAPUCHE?The Mapuche Indians of southern Chile are one of the largestcontemporary indigenous populations in South America. Theirnumber was estimated at five hundred thousand in a 1988census.4 Although the Mapuche live on reservations and in closeproximity to Chilean society, they continue to maintain their eth-nic identity. Mapudungun (mapu means land and dungu meanslanguage), the Mapuche language, is a key aspect of their culturethat both establishes and reinforces ethnic identity. The knowl-edge of the language is considered one of the most important cri-teria for being Mapuche.5 Cestmir Loukotka identifies theMapuche language as a stock belonging to the southern divisionof the Andean tribes.6 He finds five dialects among the Mapucheof Chile, of which four are still spoken. In spite of this dialecticaldifference, researchers have found the Mapuche language to rep-resent a linguistic unity.7 Mapuche from different dialecticalregions are able to communicate among themselves. Althoughtoday most Mapuche are bilingual, conversations among themare primarily held in Mapudungun; Spanish is rarely spokenamong Mapuche and is reserved for conversations with huinca(non-Mapuche). Children first learn Mapudungun before beingtaught Spanish in government schools on the reservations.8

Mapuche reservations are located in three distinct environ-

5MAPUCHE

mental zones: along the Pacific Ocean, west of the coastal range,and in the Andean foothills.9 Vast portions of Mapuche territorywere once covered by deciduous forests, but due to lumbering, fueluse, and clearing for agricultural purposes, large areas are nowdeforested. Many of the reservations are situated in a central valleybetween the coastal range and the Andean foothills. XimenaBunster presents some limited statistics from a range of physicalhabitats: Inland areas range from 53 inches to 75 inches of rainfallannually, with an average temperature of 53 degrees Fahrenheit.Coastal areas range from 99 inches to 113 inches of rainfall withslightly cooler temperatures. Furthermore, the farther south a loca-tion is the greater the rainfall and the cooler the temperature.10

The Mapuche land is known for its high frequency of seismicand volcanic activity, as well as for tidal waves.11 Chile is one ofthe countries with the highest seismic activity in the world.12 It isestimated that more than fifteen thousand seismic movementshave occurred in Chile since 1543.13 Many of those earthquakeshave registered higher than 8 on the Richter scale, with the high-est, in 1960, registering a magnitude of 8.5.14 These environmentalconditions have strongly influenced Mapuche cosmology andworldview. Mapuche myths abound with volcanic eruptions,earthquakes, and tidal waves. Many Mapuche rituals are con-ducted in response to such cataclysms, which are often inter-preted as punishment by the gods and the ancestral spirits fordeviating from the traditional path.

Mapuche houses, or ruka, are built in small clusters of three orfour, known as lofche, but single dwellings are also common.15 Therukas are generally oval or rectangular, fifteen feet wide, thirty feetlong, and eight to ten feet high. These houses are often oriented inan east-west direction, with a single doorway facing east. There areno windows, only openings that serve as smokeholes at oppositeends of the roof. Located near the center is a fireplace, which pro-vides the only artificial source of light and heat. Cooking is doneover an open fire.

The social life on each reservation is essentially that of a smallcommunity.16 In her study of seven reservations, Ximena Bunstermakes it clear that reservations are actually comunidades, small kin-ship-based holdings given to the Mapuche by the government.17

Mapuche society is organized around the principle of patrilin-eal descent, that is, people trace their primary kinship connectionsto the ancestors and living relatives of their fathers. Groups basedon patrilineal lineages are formed by those individuals who areable to trace their descent through the males from a common


ancestor. All men have membership in large, localized corporatelineages. Deceased members are considered to be the ancestralspirits of the lineage. A relatively recent important social changeaffecting the Mapuche is the establishment of lineage leaders aschiefs of the entire community or reservation.18 The lonko, or chief,has authority in the organization of political, economic, religious,and marital affairs. The lonko has the assistance of a council ofelders who are the heads of lineage branches. These elders sharethe responsibility of organizing and conducting the rituals.

The Mapuche practice patrilocality, that is, after marriage aMapuche woman moves to her husband’s reservation. The ten-dency is for a married man to continue living on the reservation ofhis birth, although usually not in his father’s household.19 Men areencouraged to marry a matrilateral cross-cousin—a man’s mother’sbrother’s daughter.

The Mapuche religion is shamanistic. Their religious practi-tioners, the machi, are shamans, who can heal and who serve asmediators between the divine and the ordinary world. Throughtrances shamans are able to communicate with their spiritualhelpers and obtain aid in healing people and conducting rituals inthe community.20 For the past century Mapuche shamanism hasbeen considered primarily a female profession. If men wish toenter this profession they must take on female attributes. Theyhave to change their names to female ones, dress like women, andmarry men. The husband of the shaman is called dungumachife,and he plays the role of decoding the sacred language spoken bythe shaman when the shaman goes into a trance. He translates thelanguage of the shaman only when the shaman is conductinghealing rituals. For other types of rituals the shaman speaks with-out the help of the dungumachife. People enter the shaman pro-fession after having a series of dreams and visions, usually aftersuffering a long and dangerous illness. Novices can be any age,but usually are in their teens and are trained by an older shaman.The training lasts about four years, during which time the novicelives with the senior shaman. During this time the novice learnsto diagnosis illness, heal with different herbs, play drums, ven-triloquize, sing ceremonial songs, and induce trances. At the endof this period the shamans display their knowledge to othershamans and the community in a ceremony called machiwullun.The shamanic ceremonial paraphernalia consist of a drum, or kul-trun, and a carved pole, or rewe. Periodically shamans assist eachother in ceremonies and get together to restrengthen theirshamanic powers.

7MAPUCHE

For treatment of illness and disease most Mapuche consultboth shamans and western doctors. The machi are extremely popu-lar among the Mapuche and also among the Chileans, who consultthem for all kinds of problems.

The Mapuche division of labor is based on sex and age. Menhead the households, and with the help of their older sons takecare of the agricultural tasks and the selling of produce in the localmarkets. Men also supplement their incomes by working forwages. Traditionally agriculture was women’s work but nowadaysmen are the principal farmers of crops of European origin to besold in the local markets.21 Women perform the domestic tasks, butthey also work in the gardens and sometimes sell fruits and vegeta-bles. The children help their parents by taking care of the animalsand performing domestic chores.22

The Mapuche family is a self-contained unit of production andconsumption. Families have rukas, parcels of land, for their ownuse, and animals and materials for their needs.23 However, formajor agricultural tasks—such as the harvest, which requires manyworkers—the Mapuche engage in mingaco, or communal work.This type of work is done with the help of relatives and friends.Lately its importance has diminished with the introduction ofmechanized harvesters.24 The main crops planted by the Mapucheare wheat, potatoes, barley, oats, linseed, and rye. Wheat is themost important cash crop because the farmer can obtain creditbased on a future harvest, and wheat can easily be sold at retail orwholesale prices. Credit is often used to purchase essential mater-ial possessions.25 In addition to planting crops, the Mapuche raisegoats, sheep, and chickens for home consumption. Fishing andhunting supplement the household diet. Wage labor is a recentphenomenon; Mapuche men often work three or four days a weekfor Chilean landowners.

HISTORY OF CONTACT: THE MAPUCHE AND THE HUINCA

The Mapuche are renowned for maintaining their ethnic identitydespite centuries of invasion and colonization, and despite recentattempts at integrating them into the Chilean society. The Mapuchesuccessfully defended their territory against all invaders—Incan,


Spanish, and Chilean—beginning with the pre-Hispanic Incanexpansion into what is now southern Chile and ending with thebeginning of the reservation system in 1884. Today the Mapucheterritory covers the provinces of Arauco, Bio-Bio, Malleco, Cautin,Valdivia, Osorno, and Llanquihue in the south of Chile. Most ofthe population is centered in the provinces of Cautin and Valdivia,between 39 and 40 degrees south latitude.26

The Mapuche, also known in the ethnographic literature asAraucanian, had their first contact with the Spaniards in 1540,when Pedro de Valdivia invaded Chile and founded Santiago.Valdivia began colonizing Chile via the encomienda system.Through this system Valdivia granted large areas of land andnative labor to his officers as payment for their services. LouisFaron reports that one of Valdivia’s captains received a grant ofthirty thousand Indians, who were used to pan gold.27 TheMapuche resistance had its formal beginnings in the first greatuprisings of 1554. For the following three hundred years theMapuche were at war with the Spanish and Chilean nationals. Thetraditional Mapuche social organization of small kinship-basedgroups allowed for effective guerrilla warfare against invaders.

For four centuries the Mapuche endured not only a war withthe Spanish and Chilean soldiers but also an intense campaign ofChristianization by Jesuit, Franciscan, and Capuchin missionaries.The shamans actively fought the campaigns of the missionaries.28

Until the end of the nineteenth century the shamans played animportant role in the failure of the evangelization of the Mapuche.

The Chilean army, emerging victorious from Chile’s war withPeru and Bolivia, finally defeated the Mapuche in 1884, and theMapuche were placed on reservations. The settlement on reserva-tions and the incorporation of the Mapuche as Chilean citizenscaused major changes in the economic, social, and political life of theMapuche.

An important economic and social change was the switch froma primarily mercantile cattle-raising economy to an agriculturalone. The Chilean government promoted agriculture among theMapuche. This change altered the gender labor division that hadexisted prior to the reservation system. Mapuche men, who previ-ously were in charge of warfare and cattle raising, took over theagricultural work that had previously been done by women; themen became full-time agriculturists.

The Mapuche also experienced changes at the political andjudicial level. The lonko, or lineage heads, lost their judicial powerover crimes committed on their reservations since the Mapuche

9MAPUCHE

were placed under the judicial system of the Chilean government.In addition, the lonko became the representatives of their commu-nities to the Chilean authorities. This role has diminished through-out the twentieth century, however. Except for those times whenthe Mapuche have organized themselves against the land-tenurelaws passed in this century, their representation in government hasbeen minimal.

The religious organization of the Mapuche changed when theMapuche were placed on reservations. Before the end of the warthere were priests, diviners, dream interpreters, and healers. Theonly full-time religious practitioners who survived the manychanges in Mapuche society on the reservations were the machi(the healers). The machi, however, also experienced changes.Before the reservation system the shamanic healing arts were per-formed by both men and women, but with the settlement on reser-vations shamanism emerged as a primarily female profession. Aschiefs lost their political power in the twentieth century, shamansobtained more political power, and the management and perfor-mance of rituals became political activities. The shamans ruled bythe ad mapu—the ancestral laws—and made attendance at all ritu-als obligatory. Participation in rituals makes an individual aMapuche; if a Mapuche stops participating in rituals, then thatMapuche ceases to be a Mapuche.

MAPUCHE DREAM THEORY

Traditionally the Mapuche have been deeply preoccupied with thefuture and the unknown. To address these concerns they devel-oped a number of divinatory systems, involving both physical andpsychological phenomena. For instance, ethnographic and mission-ary reports have mentioned that the Mapuche examine hand andfoot tremors and the flight of birds to predict the future. In fact, lit-tle is known about Mapuche divinatory systems, and many ofthese systems have fallen into disuse. Dream interpretation is theonly one that continues to be of importance. Dreams are daily nar-rated and interpreted.29

According to the Mapuche, the action of dreaming involvesmovement, because the soul leaves the body, or trawa, of the sleep-ing person and wanders about. For the Mapuche—as for manyother native societies—this journey outside of the body is the expe-rience of dreaming.30 The Mapuche name for the soul engaged in


the activity of dreaming, thinking, or imagining is pülli, which isalso used to describe the last stage of the soul’s transformationafter death.31 Being able to travel long distances allows the pülli toreach the cosmic plains of wenu mapu—the land of the ancestorsand the deities—after death, where it becomes integrated into thepantheon of the Mapuche ancestors. In life, pülli is responsible forthe activities of dreaming, thinking, and imagining because theseactivities may take the soul on long journeys to the supernaturalworld.

The action of dreaming is performed by the soul of the sleepingperson, who receives the information about the soul’s nighttimejourney at dawn. Thus the narrative of a dream represents the wak-ing verbalization of the story told to the dreamer by the travellingsoul. A twenty-four hour period is divided into four parts: antu(day); pun (night); liwen, or epewun (dawn); and ella trafja (dusk).Dawn is the time period considered most important by theMapuche; it endows them with health and vigor.32 Not surprisingly,dawn is the time when most of the important rituals are performed.Shamans pray at dawn in order to communicate with Wuñelfe, thegoddess of the morning star.33 Dawn is considered a pure andsacred time, when night and day are separated; the morning lightprotects the Mapuche from the evil spirits of darkness. Soul andbody are united at this hour, and the soul narrates to the body theevents experienced on its oneiric journey.

Dreaming is considered a potentially dangerous journey. Thejourney can be dangerous for the soul because the soul can beexposed to evil spirits. The soul can journey to the anka mapu—theland inhabited by the wekufe, or evil spirit—where an encounterbetween the pülli and evil forces might cause death, sickness, orloss of the soul. If, on the other hand, the soul encounters goodspirits, then the dream is beneficial to the soul.

For most people the journey of the soul is passive because theirsouls lack volition and as such are subject to the actions of otherspirits. The dream experience of shamans is different, however, inthat their souls do have volition while journeying at night, and cantherefore control their dream activities with the aid of spirithelpers. Because shamans must contact the supernatural in orderto receive orders or advice, their souls are constantly exposed todanger and are considered to be stronger than those of ordinarypeople. It is believed that because of this constant exposure to thewekufe, shamans’ souls are often taken over by evil spirits, and theshamans themselves become agents of evil. For this reasonshamans are usually feared, because one never knows when they

11MAPUCHE

may become witches. Chiefs and ritual leaders are also seen as hav-ing strong souls, although to a lesser degree than shamans.

Dream Classification, Dreamers, and Dream Interpreters

The Mapuche place dreams into two major categories: wesa peuma,bad dreams, and küme peuma, good dreams. This classification isbased on the qualitative aspect of the prophecies announced indreams; wesa peuma have negative outcomes and küme peumahave positive outcomes.

In Mapuche society everyone is considered capable of dream-ing. Traditionally, however, there have been different categories ofdreamers: (1) peumafe, the official dreamers of the community; (2)pelon, certain types of diviners; (3) machi, shamans; (4) lonco, chiefs;(5) niempin, ritual leaders; and (6) ordinary dreamers.

The peumafe (peuma means dream and fe means skills) are indi-viduals capable of receiving important dream messages for thecommunity from the supernatural world. In the days before thereservation system this role was taken by individuals whoseexclusive function was to have dreams and to report them to thecommunity. Thus they were the official dreamers, whose dreamscontained supernatural messages about the future of the society.Sometimes this role was shared with other political and spiritualleaders of the group such as shamans, chiefs, or ritual leaders.34

Among contemporary Mapuche, however, no single person per-forms this function exclusively. Instead this role has been assumedand shared by the shamans and, to a lesser degree, by chiefs,elders, ritual leaders, and shamanic interpreters, orthungumachifes.

The pelon, or peun, were diviners, whose service as dreamerswas considered to be of great importance to the society.35 Theywere able to discover thieves, criminals, witches, and lost objects.To locate lost objects through dreams, the chief means of divin-ing, the pelon slept with an object that had been in physical con-tact with the items lost.36 They also intervened magically in tradi-tional horse racing and were able to predict the outcome of racesand games from dreams they had the night before the scheduledevent.37 Among contemporary Mapuche the shamans have takenon the role of the diviners.

The machi, or shamans, have traditionally been considered


important dreamers. They use dreams to heal, to divine thefuture, and to receive supernatural information. Shamanic dream-ing is qualitatively different from ordinary dreaming in that it isoften effected by the use of hallucinogens. The term peuma is usedfor all types of shamanic journeys of the soul, including shamanictrances, which occur while the shaman appears to be awake, andnighttime dreams.

Other dreamers are the lonco, or chiefs, who make use of theirdreams in various ways. All of their dreams preceding a politicalmeeting are narrated for the purpose of finding a solution to theproblems to be discussed at the meeting.38 Major decisions made bychiefs are almost always arrived at only after a thorough examina-tion and interpretation of their dreams. In the past chiefs con-ducted rituals subsequent to experiencing bad dreams, becausesuch dreams were taken as bad omens for the entire community.They also conducted rituals when other members of the commu-nity were plagued by bad dreams.39

The niempin are the ritual leaders whose dreams are used todetermine the date of a ngillatun. In the past the niempin used tocommunicate to the chiefs divine messages they received indreams during the ngillatun.

Before the reservation system there were peumatufe, or officialdream interpreters,whose profession consisted exclusively of inter-preting dreams. There were other individuals called peunmatufe,who interpreted dreams for the purpose of searching for lostobjects or animals.40 Nowadays the functions of dream interpreta-tion are divided between shamans and wise elders. Difficultdreams are taken to a shaman or to someone known for his or herwise interpretations, but most dreams are interpreted by the indi-vidual dreamers and their family members.

The Context of Dream Narration

Dreams are narrated by both men and women. Stylized forms ofdream narrative, however, tend to be in the male domain becauseoratory is considered a male art. Most of the good dreams nar-rated in public are those of the official dreamers of the society. Thedreams of successful shamans and chiefs who are believed to havedirect access to the supernatural are an important component ofshamanic and political discourse and are therefore announcedpublicly. Dreams narrated by these official dreamers predict cata-

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strophes, set the dates for rituals, and define specific behavior tobe displayed at the rituals.

Shamans do not usually communicate their dreams with pri-vate meaning to others for fear it may enrage their auxiliary spirits,who are extremely jealous and consider their relationship with theshamans secret and exclusive. Shamans do, however, share withthe community all dreams containing divine messages for thegroup and all dreams with therapeutic functions.

The Mapuche narrate dreams at informal and formal gather-ings, as part of one of the five different types of narrations: (1) theweupin, or ritualized speeches, which are exchanged between menat the beginning and at the end of household visits. Hosts fre-quently narrate good dreams that predicted the arrival of the visi-tors; (2) the qulkatun, or improvised song narrative, in which thesinger/narrator often includes the dreams preceding happy or sadevents to illustrate the inevitability of the occurrence; (3) thenut’amkan, or historical narrative, in which the narrator recountsheroic deeds of Mapuche warriors or unforgettable events in thelife of the narrator, and incorporates the important dreams of theMapuche warriors or of the narrator; (4) the epeu, or folk tale; and(5) the daily conversations among family members.41

Shamanism and Dreams: The Shamanic Journey

Shamanism in Mapuche society—as in other shamanic societies—ischaracterized by the practitioner’s ability to enter a trance, orecstasy (peuma in Mapudungun) to communicate with the super-natural world.42 The shaman’s soul leaves the body and enters therealm of the supernatural, where the soul communicates withancestors and gods. In the native theory the soul’s ability to jour-ney to the supernatural is considered of vital importance for thepractice of shamanism. Individuals in Mapuche society who dreamvividly, have visions, enter into trances, and have survived pro-longed illness are believed to have been singled out to be trained asshamans. All of these shamanic traits entail a journey of the souloutside the body. The journeys experienced in dreams, visions,trances, and illness differ in length and in the degree of transforma-tion experienced. Death, of course, is the longest journey andinvolves the greatest transformation.

Death is viewed as the permanent separation of the individ-


ual’s soul from the body. This separation involves a journey that,if successful, could lead the soul to the wenu mapu, or nome-lafken—the place of final rest. In the journey to the wenu maputhe soul goes through a series of transformations. The first trans-formation occurs as soon as the individual dies and the am, orsoul, of the living becomes an alwe, or wandering spirit. In thisstate, which lasts no more than four days, the alwe is in closephysical proximity to the body, and is vulnerable to the actions ofthe evil spirits who try to capture it. If these evil spirits are suc-cessful in their pursuit, the alwe is transformed into a malevolentspirit who will act under the agency of the evil spirits and causesickness and death. If the alwe manages to escape the actions ofthe evil spirits, it will be able to travel farther, for about one tofour years, until it arrives at its final destination. In order toaccomplish this long and difficult journey, the alwe needs to betransformed into pülli, which has the power to travel long dis-tances. In the wenu mapu the pülli will be safe from the evil spir-its and will become an ancestor spirit. As an ancestor spirit it willbe able to direct the moral life of the Mapuche by giving advice tothe living through dreams. Over the course of four years, then,the soul can be transformed into either an agent of evil or anancestor spirit. Death is not only the end of the body but also thecreation of either good or negative spirits that form an integralpart of the life of the Mapuche. The good spirits guide the morallife of the Mapuche and the evil spirits cause sickness, misfor-tune, and death.

A dream is a kind of “lesser death” in the sense that itinvolves the temporary separation of the body from the soul andhas the potential to transform the latter. This transformation canoccur when evil spirits damage the soul or when good spirits givespecial powers or gifts to it. Shamans are the only individualswho have the power to direct their dreams; in great part this isdue to their having survived a serious illness—a near-death expe-rience in which their soul has been transformed. Having a near-death experience empowers the soul, and demonstrates that thesoul is strong enough to travel a long distance without beingdamaged. This strength of the soul enables shamans to be the linkbetween the living and the dead through their dreams. In theircommunication with the ancestors shamans can exercise themoral system, in which good and bad behavior are definedaccording to what is traditional, so the moral system of theirancestors is constantly being redefined through the dreams of theshamans.

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SHAMANIC DREAMS

DURING CRITICAL TIMES

The Mapuche shamans play an important role as interpreters ofcritical situations. Through their dreams Mapuche shamansexplain natural catastrophes and political events. The shaman’scentral role in the management of important rituals becomes cru-cial during times of community stress, during periods of naturaldisasters and political repression, for example. Dreams play a sig-nificant role in Mapuche rituals because they provide the divinerules according to which the leaders keep the tribal law function-ing. A dream legitimizes the political power of the dreamer infront of the community because it establishes a direct connectionbetween the dreamer and the ancestors. In ritual ceremonies adream plays the important role of legitimizing the voice of thedreamer and presenting the traditional and ideal behavior. Thisrole becomes more important during critical times because the rit-uals are performed spontaneously, and they call for an explana-tion of the crisis and guidance through it. Crises requiring ritualceremonies include natural catastrophes such as earthquakes, tidalwaves, floods, and volcanic eruptions and social crises involvingany form of social or political repression. A ceremony is usuallyperformed to put an end to a catastrophe and to find an explana-tion for it. Shamans usually order ritual ceremonies after having adream in which their ancestors explain the reasons for a calamity.

Dreams and Earthquakes

The Mapuche inhabit a seismically active part of Chile that is besetby intense earthquakes and devastating tidal waves.43 TheMapuche attribute these phenomena to Pillan, the god of thunder,and believe that when they occur a ngillatun ritual must be per-formed to appease the forces of nature. Human sacrifice is specifi-cally called for to counteract the floods caused by tidal waves.Such beliefs are deeply rooted in Mapuche oral tradition, whichabounds in narratives of cataclysms and associated ngillatun ritu-als.44 Preserved in this traditional lore are the accounts of how cat-aclysms announced themselves in dreams or visions, and howngillatun rituals with human sacrifice were conducted. In the ear-liest available version of the Mapuche origin myth, collected by


Rosales in the mid-seventeenth century, the survivors of the greatflood sacrificed one of their children, cutting the child into fourparts and throwing the pieces into the water. This made thewaters recede.45 In a myth collected by Eulogio Robles Rodriguezthe Mapuche celebrated their first ngillatun following a big floodcaused by tidal waves. An orphan child was sacrificed on thisoccasion, and his blood was used for ceremonial purposes.46 In yetanother version of the origin myth, collected by Humberto deAugusta at the beginning of the twentieth century, the cataclysmwas announced to a shaman in a vision. She saw a little manemerging from the water and ascending to the sky. Later a jaguardescended to tell the shaman that a tidal wave would come, inwhich all non-Indians would die.47

The following case is a dramatic example of the power of theshamanic use of dreams. This case illustrates how shamans use tra-ditional knowledge to provide an interpretation of their reality andtheir relationship to the Chileans. In the process of interpreting aseries of violent earthquakes in 1960 the shamans established rulesof ideal behavior for the Mapuche. Another important aspect ofthis case is the fact that shamanic decision overruled the Chileanjudicial system.

In 1960 a series of earthquakes shook Mapuche land withgreat force. The first earthquake happened on May 21, 1960, reg-istering 7.5 on the Richter scale. It was centered in the northernsection of Mapuche country, in the vicinity of Concepción. Thispowerful earthquake was followed by a second, stronger one of8.5 magnitude, centered in the southern section of the Mapucheterritory, near Puerto Montt. For more than three months theregion continued shaking with several afterquakes of 7.5 and 8magnitudes.48 Seven more volcanoes erupted in the Mapuche ter-ritory, and three other earthquakes appeared elsewhere in thearea. The most powerful of the earthquakes hit the area ofAraucania, where most of the Mapuche population is concen-trated. Tidal waves swept away several towns. Thousands of peo-ple were killed, houses were destroyed, and entire towns werewiped out. The coming of these terrifying earthquakes was her-alded by a red nova in the Chilean sky. It remained visible to thenaked eye for one week prior to the onset of the earthquakes.49

The shaman in the coastal region had a dream that predictedthe earthquakes. One week before the earthquakes started shedreamed the following:

A bull was roaring. It went to the Maule river, and a skinnyhorse came down to the river, too. They started to fight in theocean.

17MAPUCHE

The shaman understood that the dream was predicting a horribleevent that was going to affect everybody because of the image ofthe two supernatural combatants. She did not report the dream tothe chiefs because she was unsure of what the event would be.Only after the first earthquake occurred did she realize exactlywhat the dream had meant.

The Mapuche conducted a series of ngillatun rituals to pla-cate the supernatural powers, and the most notorious of thesewas held on the coastal reservation where the shaman whosedream had predicted the earthquakes lived. After a month of con-tinuous earthquakes and tidal waves the people were in a state ofcomplete panic. They had already conducted a number of ritualsbut the earth continued to tremble. Finally, the shaman hadanother dream. In it she was told that in order to placate Huen-Chao, the Father of the Universe, it was necessary to perform ahuman sacrifice. A boy whose mother was working in the regionas a maid was chosen, and on June 5, 1960, he was killed duringthe ngillatun and his body was thrown into the ocean, accordingto tradition.50

The shaman who ordered the sacrifice of the child explainedher dream to me in a series of interviews conducted from 1985 to1987. She said that in her dream she learned that the 1960 earth-quakes were an expression of nature’s anger at the oppressive atti-tudes and actions of the Chilean government toward shamans andtraditional rituals. Nature’s anger had been aroused by theChileans’ repression of traditional Mapuche culture. The huincawere being punished, and if the Mapuche wanted to save them-selves they had to conduct a ngillatun in the traditional way. Theyhad to behave according to the traditional way, not like theChileans. The celebration of a ritual like the ones described in theirmyths was the best way to demonstrate to the gods the Mapuchedesire to adhere to the ad mapu, or traditional laws. The shaman’sexplanation demonstrated her fight against cultural oppression.After the shaman had informed the community in her role of offi-cial dreamer, the ngillatun ritual was performed in strict adherenceto the dream and with the participation of the shaman’s commu-nity and other guest communities.

Shamanic dreams predicting earthquakes are usually narratedafter the earthquakes have occurred. However, dreams that expli-cate the reasons for the cataclysm are usually narrated as soon asthe shaman has the dream. In announcing and explaining suchevents shamans exercise their political and religious power. Actingas the werken, or messengers, of the supernatural, they validate the


ad mapu and their own power. They acquire much personal pres-tige by serving as good dreamers.

I interviewed shamans from different regions, and most ofthem had narrated dreams of upcoming earthquakes. In fact, thereis considerable rivalry among shamans regarding their roles beforeand after catastrophes. In the case of the earthquakes in 1960 therewere many older shamans who believed that they had been theonly ones to receive early dream announcements of the impendingdoom and accused other shamans of being false messengers.

People other than shamans also claim to have dreams predict-ing disasters. In their dreams Mapuche ideal behavior is con-structed, too. Often their dreams not only contain requests for angillatun before earthquakes, but also may instruct the dreamerhow to survive the cataclysm. On one reservation Matilde, anolder woman, told me about such a dream prior to an earthquake.She was given to understand that the earth was Mother; she wasvery angry because the Mapuche were not behaving according totradition. They were becoming like the Chileans. The dreamerwas told that she had to pray during the earthquake because onlypeople who prayed, without panicking or crying, would besaved. The Mapuche of the region were about to be punishedbecause of their disrespect for Mother Earth. Earth had to showthem who was in charge. Matilde said that she owed her life tothe dream. All through the trembling of the earthquake she fol-lowed the dream’s advice and calmly prayed.

Dreams and Political Unrest

Under the socialist government of Salvador Allende, from 1970 to1973, the Mapuche became actively involved in the tomas de terreno(land seizures) with the purpose of gaining back their lost land.During this period the Mapuche were able to recover approxi-mately seventy thousand hectares of land. This land was returnedto the Chileans in 1973. Their participation in these activities laterled to political persecution by the Pinochet government that over-threw the Allende government in 1973.

After the bloody 1973 coup d’etat Pinochet took over the gov-ernment for seventeen years. Pinochet wanted to purge the countryof political leaders thought to be subversive. Mapuche leaderswere identified as subversive and persecuted.51 Many werearrested or killed. The fortunate ones with international connec-tions obtained political asylum in Europe and Mexico.

19MAPUCHE

By the mid-1980s the Mapuche were frustrated with theresults of Law 2568, passed in 1983, which required just one voteper community for land to be divided. This law threatened to endthe Mapuche reservation life. It gave independent titles for land;thus individual owners could sell the land whereas communalowners could not. The Mapuche feared that all the land would besold because of the inability of the Mapuche to pay the land taxesfor individual owners. Without their land they would be forcedto go to the cities.

The Mapuche leadership split, with one section formingalliances with the non-Mapuche political left and the other becom-ing part of the Centros Culturales, organized by the CatholicChurch, which emphasized cultural independence and tried tomaintain their ethnicity by supporting and advocating participa-tion in the traditional rituals. The alliance to the Centros Culturalesgrew because of the fear of association with the outlaw left. Manyyounger men started to work for the Catholic Church as evangeliz-ers. The young leaders of the Mapuche, most of whom wereemployed by the Catholic Church, were involved in this campaignto preserve their tradition. When they went to different reserva-tions to evangelize, these young men used their visits to present aform of resistance to cultural and political oppression. The mainte-nance of traditional Mapuche values and beliefs was encouraged.These young leaders believed that if they maintained unity andrecovered pride in their culture they would be able to resist theefforts of the Chilean government to divide land for private owner-ship. Shamans in particular were asked to maintain their sacredknowledge and keep it secret from strangers.

Several rituals were conducted from 1985 to 1987 because ofthe great political tension in the country. The Mapuche were frus-trated with their situation, the new law threatened further landdivision, and they lacked the political guidance of their chiefsbecause of political persecution. Also, major natural catastrophesoccurred during this time. Severe storms caused major floods. Aseries of earthquakes of 7.5 magnitude and the eruption of two vol-canoes occurred. The flooding caused severe damage to the agri-culture in the region. In addition, the comet Halley could be seen inthe early mornings by the naked eye in southern Chile for all of1985. The shamans of many reservations called for ngillatun toenhance cultural unity. The need to perform these ceremonies waslegitimized by the shamans’ dreams. These dreams were narratedat the meetings by the chiefs of the communities involved in thecelebrations. In the dreams the shamans were told the reasons why


the Mapuche were suffering and being persecuted. There were twomain explanations: One explanation placed the blame on theMapuche for violating the traditional laws of the ad mapu andbehaving like huinca, and the other blamed the huinca as the directcause of Mapuche suffering.

According to the first explanation the Mapuche were violatingthe traditions of their ancestors by becoming like the huinca—dressing like them and speaking like them. As one machi said, theancestors were angry because the young people were speakingmore Spanish than Mapudungun; drinking wine instead of mudai,the traditional fermented drink; and carrying radios to thengillatun. Also, young women were cutting their hair and wearingpants and makeup. The only way to end the political crisis and thenatural disasters was to behave in a traditional manner.

The other explanation blamed the huinca directly for theMapuche problems—earthquakes and floods were seen as huincapersecution. Shamans recommended unity to defy the huinca per-secution, and this unity was to be found in the unity of theMapuche culture—a culture that was traditional and that respectedancestral laws. Because the epicenter of a series of earthquakes in1984 was not in the Mapuche area but in the center part of thecountry, the shamans said the earthquakes were a result of the rageof their ancestors at the behavior of the huinca. The Mapuchewould be saved from the next catastrophes by behaving in a tradi-tional manner. Rituals had to be conducted according to tradition,despite the many governmental prohibitions against such gather-ings because of the states of emergency that were common duringthe seventeen years of Pinochet’s government.

THE DREAMS OF THE ROCKKEEPER

The following case occurred during the most repressive phase ofPinochet’s government (at the beginning of his government in 1973and during the final years, 1985 to 1987) in an area historicallyknown for the rebellious attitudes of the Mapuche toward theChileans.

A man I will call Manuel was the chief of one community andritual leader of four communities. Fifty-eight years old in 1986,Manuel had two wives and twelve children. His community wasknown not only for its rebellious stand toward huinca, but also asone of the most traditional areas, where people still wore tradi-

21MAPUCHE

tional clothing, tended to speak only Mapudungun, practicedpolygyny, and regularly practiced traditional rituals. Poverty wasalso characteristic of this area. The soil was almost completelyeroded, and over the past hundred years the best Mapuche landhad been taken over by German immigrants. Consequently, theMapuche of this area had been forced to work for wages as farmworkers for their wealthy neighbors and gather rose hips in thenearby hills to sell to pharmaceutical companies.

In Manuel’s community there was a sacred rock that had beentraditionally venerated by the Mapuche. The Mapuche believe thatrocks harbor spirits that can endow their worshippers withpower.52 This particular rock was believed to have rolled downfrom a hill and landed in a spring one hundred years ago. Everyyear people from remote communities came to pay homage to therock and ask for favors. Shamans came to the rock to obtain power.The rock’s reputation as a healing and problem-solving stone hadalso reached non-Mapuche Chileans.

In 1973, soon after Pinochet’s military coup, Manuel wasarrested for expressing antigovernment ideas and for his allegedaffiliation with a leftist political party. He was tortured for severaldays and left for dead on a road. He survived his injuries, and soonafter had a series of dreams about the sacred rock. He recountedthe first of these dreams as follows:

I dreamed that the rock mentioned my name, and called me.It said, “Manuel, come here!” Then it spoke in Mapudungun;it did not speak in Spanish when it said, “I want you to be theperson who will clean me.” “Hey,” I said to my family, “I hadthis big dream,” and I asked them to come with me. “Let’sgo,” I told them, and I brought a bucket. And we went toclean the rock. I threw water at the rock, everywhere, and itbecame very shiny; it looked beautiful.

Manuel emphasized the fact that the rock identified him and spoketo him in Mapudungun—not Spanish, the dominant language.Manuel continued for several years to wash the rock periodically.

At the time of Manuel’s torture and subsequent dreams themunicipality of the town near the reservation had custody of therock. Although the rock was located on an Indian reservation, thenon-Mapuche office of the municipality claimed the site in accor-dance with a law that granted rights over a strip of twenty-fivemeters along both sides of the road. The fact that the rock waslocated one hundred meters from the road did not seem to matter.The municipality began charging money for access to the road,and all visitors had to pay. It was a difficult and painful situation


for the Mapuche; they had to pay for something that belonged tothem. When the municipality installed picnic tables, non-Mapuchebegan to come on weekends to picnic and barbecue. The Mapuchehad to watch non-Mapuche having parties and getting drunk atthe sacred rock. Several years later, after a particularly rowdyparty organized by the municipality, Manuel had a dream inwhich the spirit of the rock told him, “From this moment on, youwill be in charge. You are a Mapuche, and only a Mapuche can dothis.” After having this dream, Manuel interpreted his survivingthe beatings and his subsequent dreams as indicative of a specialmission assigned to him by his ancestors. Manuel communicatedthis latest message to his family and prayed in front of the rock.

Soon afterward Manuel had a third dream, in which the rocktold him that things were going to change—that the abuse of theMapuche would stop but he had to be very alert. All of thesedreams encouraged Manuel to call for a meeting, even thoughsocial gatherings were not allowed under military rule. Only a fewpeople came to his meeting. He told them about surviving the tor-ture and about his dreams. He explained to the people that by sur-viving torture at the hands of the huinca he had shown the truequalities of a warrior. He had been transformed, and his soul wasa strong one. His calling was similar to shamanic calling, but dif-ferent in that his encounter with death came at the hand of ahuinca. The dreams indicated that he had to become a warrior,fight for his people, and embark on a new mission. He encouragedpeople to go to the rock and pray without paying the municipal-ity’s fee. On four separate occasions groups of people prayed atthe rock without paying the fee, and they were not detained orbeaten by the police. During the fourth visit people said theyheard the sound of money falling near the rock during theirprayer session. Manuel and the other worshippers interpreted thisas a signal from God that they would win their fight with themunicipality.

Soon after this fourth visit to the rock, Manuel had a fourthdream, in which the rock told him the following:

You heard the signal. You have shown faith in God. We willnot allow them to abuse you. You will pray on your way tothe rock. Tomorrow it will rain. You will protect yourselffrom the rain behind a bush and see how the road will moveand shift from side to side. No vehicles will be able to passover the road.

Manuel narrated the dream to the community, and it was agreed

23MAPUCHE

that the fight might be difficult but God would be on their side. Itrained severely during the day, and a jeep from the municipalitytried to get to the rock. But because the road was very slipperythe jeep got stuck in the mud. These events seemed to verify theprediction of Manuel’s dream. He assembled the community, andthey decided to go to the municipality to claim the rights to theirrock. The following day Manuel and some other members of hiscommunity went to talk to the mayor. They presented their case,and they prevailed. To this day Manuel is considered the officialcaretaker of the rock both by the non-Mapuche municipality andby the Mapuche community.

In the capacity of official caretaker—a position previouslyunheard of among the Mapuche—Manuel keeps the rock clean andburns the candles that people leave for the rock. He also receivessome money from worshippers who want him to continue takingcare of the sanctuary. He continues to have dreams, in which therock gives him specific instructions on how to pray, how to orga-nize rituals, and how to dispatch his task as the rockkeeper. Therock also advises him in matters related to his political and reli-gious offices. Manuel says that the rock guided him in the processof becoming a Mapuche. According to Manuel, a proper Mapuchespeaks the Mapuche language, is a warrior, and respects theMapuche tradition. Through the dreams the rock reminded himthat his “Mapucheness” made him different from the Chileans andallowed him to fight and to lead his people.

CONCLUSION

Throughout the twentieth century the peumafe, especially theshamans, have used dreams to communicate with their ancestorsand to help the Mapuche understand themselves at criticalmoments. Dream narratives contribute to the development of a dis-tinct ethnic identity, and create a cultural resistance to oppressionand domination. This “self definition” is a rejection of the domi-nant society’s negative definitions of the Mapuche.

The dream discourses of shamans and community chiefsattempt to prevent ideological domination by others. These dreamdiscourses help revive ethnic and cultural memory during criticalperiods. They remind the Mapuche who they are and who theywere. The voices of the dreamers also perpetuate the notion of tra-dition. However, as the case of the Mapuche rockkeeper shows,


tradition is often recreated in the process of change.53 The definitionof the Mapuche traditional way of life is often shaped by the con-text of time. As the Mapuche move forward, maintaining relationswith the huinca, they may have to adapt their ethnicity accord-ingly.

NOTES

1. See Barbara Tedlock, ed., Dreaming: Anthropological andPsychological Interpretations (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1987).

2. See Robert Dentan, “Butterflies and Bug Hunters: Reality andDreams, Dreams and Reality,” Psychiatric Journal of the Universityof Ottawa 3 (1988).

3. See Gilbert Herdt, “Selfhood and Discourse in Sambia DreamSharing,” in Barbara Tedlock, ed., Dreaming: Anthropological andPsychological Interpretations (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1987).

4. Universidad de la Frontera, Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas,Censo de reducciones indigenas seleccionadas: Análisis sociodemográfico(CELADE: Santiago de Chile, 1990).

5. Milan Stuchlick, Life on a Half Share (London: C. Hurst &Company, 1976), p. 20.

6. Cestmir Loukotka, Classification of South American Indian Languages(Los Angeles: Latin American Center, University of California,1968), p. 273.

7. See Robert Croese, “Mapuche Dialect Survey,” in Harriet E.Manelis Klein and Louisa R. Stark, eds., South American IndianLanguages (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985).

8. Ibid., p. 786.9. Louis Faron, The Mapuche Indians of Chile (New York: Holt,

Rinehart & Winston, 1968), p. 1.10. Ximena Bunster, “Adaptation in Mapuche Life: Natural and

Directed” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1968), p. 22.11. Pedro Cunill, Vision of Chile (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria,

1972).12. Pedro Cunill, Atlas Instituto Militar (Santiago: Editorial

Universitaria, 1981).13. Cunill, Vision of Chile, p. 31.14. Martin Duke, “The Chilean Earthquakes of May 1960,” Science 132

(1960): 34–42.

25MAPUCHE

15. Faron, The Mapuche Indians of Chile, p. 28.16. Bunster, “Adaptation in Mapuche Life: Natural and Directed.” 17. Ibid., p. 356.18. Faron, The Mapuche Indians of Chile, p. 22.19. Ibid.20. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972).21. Faron, The Mapuche Indians of Chile.22. See Jose Bengoa, Historia del pueblo Mapuche siglo XIX y XX

(Santiago: Ediciones Sur, 1985); Ines Hilger, Araucanian Child Lifeand Its Cultural Background (Washington, D.C.: SmithsonianMiscellaneous Collections, 1957); and Faron, The Mapuche Indiansof Chile.

23. Jose Bengoa and Eduardo Valenzuela, Economia Mapuche: Pobreza ysubsistencia en la sociedad Mapuche contemporanea (Santiago:Editorial PAS, 1983), p. 78.

24. Bengoa, Historia del pueblo Mapuche siglo XIX y XX.25. Faron, The Mapuche Indians of Chile.26. Ibid., p. 10.27. Ibid.28. See Jorge Pinto, Holdenis Casanova, Sergio Uribe, and Mauro

Matthei, Misioneros en la Araucanía (Ediciones Universidad de LaFrontera, 1988).

29. See Louis Faron, Hawks of the Sun: Mapuche Morality and Its RitualAttributes (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1964); LouisFaron, “Symbolic Values and the Integration of Society among theMapuche,” in John Middleton, ed., Myth and Cosmos: Readings inMythology and Symbolism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967);Louis Faron, The Mapuche Indians of Chile; Maria Ester Grebe, “Elkultrun Mapuche: Un microcosmos simbolico,” Revista MusicalChilena 123 (1971); Tomas Guevara, Las ultimas familias Araucanas(Santiago: Imprenta, Litografia y Encuadernacion Barcelona,1913); Tomas Guevara, Historia de la justicia Araucana (Santiago:Imprenta Universo, 1922); Ines Hilger, Araucanian Child Life and ItsCultural Background; Huenun Namku, An Araucanian Indian of theAndes Remembers the Past (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1966); Bertha Koessler-Ilg, Cuentan los Araucanos (Buenos Aires:Editorial Losada, 1957); Ricardo Latcham, La organizacion social ylas creencias religiosas (Santiago: Museo de Etnologia yAntropologia de Chile, 1924); Miguel Olivera, “Chem peuma eimitrafja el horizonte onirico de los Mapuche de la agrupacion anca-truz” (B.A. thesis, University of Buenos Aires, 1983); and MischaTitiev, Araucanian Culture in Transition (Michigan: University ofMichigan Press, 1951).


30. Douglass Price-Williams and Lydia Nakashima Degarrod,“Communication, Context, and Use of Dreams in AmerindianSocieties,” Journal of the Latin American Lore 15 (Winter 1989): 2.

31. Latcham, La organizacion social y las creencias religiosas, p. 344.32. Olivera, “Chem peuma eimi trafja el horizonte onirico de los

Mapuche de la agrupacion ancatruz.” 33. Grebe, “El kultrun Mapuche: Un microcosmos simbolico.”34. Bertha Koessler-Ilg, Tradiciones Araucanas (Instituto de Filologia,

Universidad de La Plata, 1962), p. 74.35. Tomas Guevara, Historia de la civilizacion de Araucania (Santiago:

Imprenta Cervantes, 1908), p. 351.36. Guevara, Las ultimas familias Araucanas, p. 270.37. Ibid.38. Bengoa, Historia del Pueblo Mapuche Siglo XIX y XX.39. Guevara, Historia de la Civilizacion de Araucania, p. 244.40. Tomas Guevara, Psicolojía del pueblo Araucano (Santiago: Imprenta

Cervantes, 1898).41. Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, “Epeu and Peuma Narratives: A

Study of Mapuche Dreams” (M.A. thesis, University of California,1983).

42. Eliade, Shamanism.43. Cunill, Vision of Chile.44. Rodolfo Lenz, Tradiciones e ideas de los Araucanos acerca de los terre-

motos ( Santiago: Imprenta Cervantes, 1912), p. 8.45. Ibid., p. 9.46. Eulogio Robles Rodriguez, Costumbres y creencias Araucanas

(Santiago: Ediciones de la Universidad de Chile), p. 7.47. Lenz, Tradiciones e ideas de los Araucanos acerca de los terremotos.48. Duke, “The Chilean Earthquakes of May 1960.”49. Science Newsletter 18 (June 1960).50. Ingeborg Lindberg, “Algunos aspectos de la vida material y espir-

itual de los Araucanos del lago budi,” Finis Terrae 7 (1960): 26–27.51. David Maybury-Lewis, “Becoming Indian in Lowland South

America,” in Greg Urban and Joel Sherzer, eds., Nation-States andIndians in Latin America (Austin: University of Texas Press), pp.207–235.

52. An explanation for the origin of this veneration can be found inthe Mapuche myth of tren tren and kai kai (Tomas Guevara, TrenTren and Kai Kai, 1911). Following a flood the Mapuche ancestorswere saved from the evil snake kai kai by the mountain tren tren.However, not everybody escaped the waters: Some Mapuchebecame fish and others turned into rocks. Rocks outcropping in

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the mountains are believed to be the petrified bodies of ancestorswho were unable to save themselves from the flood. These rocksare called huitralcura (Guevara, Tren Tren and Kai Kai, pp. 88–89).

53. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention ofTradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

SUGGESTED READINGS

Faron, Louis. Hawks of the Sun: Mapuche Morality and Its RitualAttributes. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1964. A studyof Mapuche shamanism and morality.

Faron, Louis. The Mapuche Indians of Chile. New York: Holt, Rinehart &Winston, 1968. A good ethnographic introduction to the Mapucheof Chile.

Tedlock, Barbara, ed. Dreaming: Anthropological and PsychologicalInterpretations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Auseful source for understanding dreams in anthropology.

Thomas, Nicholas, and Caroline Humphrey, eds. Shamanism, History,and the State. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994.Provides an explanation of the political role of shamans.

Urban, Greg, and Joel Sherzer, eds. Nation-States and Indians in LatinAmerica. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. Studies the rela-tionships among the indigenous peoples of Latin America, includ-ing the Mapuche and the nation-states.


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