Mapuche


The Mapuche, also known as Araucanians, are a group of Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who share a common social, religious, and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage as Mapudungun speakers. Their homelands once extended from Choapa Valley to the Chiloé Archipelago and later spread eastward to Puelmapu, a land comprising part of the Argentine pampa and Patagonia. Today, the Mapuche represent 77.16% of Chile’s indigenous peoples and about 8.8% of the total national population. The Mapuche are concentrated in the Araucanía region. Many have migrated from rural areas to the cities of Santiago and Buenos Aires to pursue economic opportunities. Around 92% of the Mapuches are from Chile.
The Mapuche traditional economy is based on agriculture; their traditional social organization consists of extended families, under the direction of a lonko or chief. In times of war, the Mapuche would unite in larger groupings and elect a toki to lead them. Mapuche material culture is known for its textiles and silverwork.
At the time of Spanish arrival, the Picunche inhabited the valleys between the Choapa and Itata, Araucanian Mapuche inhabited the valleys between the Itata and Toltén rivers, south of there, and the Huilliche and the Cunco lived as far south as the Chiloé Archipelago. In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, Mapuche groups migrated eastward into the Andes and Pampas, conquering, fusing with and establishing relationships with the Poya and Pehuenche. At about the same time, ethnic groups of the Pampa regions, the Puelche, Ranquel, and northern Aonikenk, made contact with Mapuche groups. The Tehuelche adopted the Mapuche language and some of their culture, in what came to be called Araucanization, during which Patagonia came under effective Mapuche suzerainty.
Mapuche in the Spanish-ruled areas, especially the Picunche, mingled with the Spanish during the colonial period, forming a mestizo population that lost its Indigenous identity. But Mapuche society in Araucanía and Patagonia remained independent until the late nineteenth century, when Chile occupied Araucanía and Argentina conquered Puelmapu. Since then the Mapuche have become subjects, and later nationals and citizens, of those states. Today, many Mapuche and Chilean communities are engaged in the so-called Mapuche conflict over land and Indigenous rights in both Argentina and Chile.

Etymology

Historically, the Spanish colonizers of South America referred to the Mapuche people as Araucanians. This term is now considered pejorative by some people. For others, the importance of the term Araucanian lies in the universality of the epic work La Araucana, written by Alonso de Ercilla, and the feats of that people in their long and interminable war against the Spanish Empire. The name is probably derived from the placename rag ko, meaning "chalky/clayish water". The Quechua word awqa, meaning "rebel, enemy", is probably not the root of araucano.
Scholars believe that the various Mapuche groups called themselves Reche during the early Spanish colonial period, due to what they referred to as their pure native blood, derived from re meaning "pure" and che meaning "people".
The name Mapuche is used both to refer collectively to the Pikunche, Williche, and Moluche or Nguluche from Araucanía, at other times, exclusively to the Moluche or Nguluche from Araucanía. However, Mapuche is a relatively recent endonym meaning "People of the Earth" or "Children of the Land", with mapu meaning "earth" or "land", and che meaning "person". It is preferred as a term when referring to the people after the Arauco War.
The Mapuche identify by the geography of their territories, such as:
  • Pwelche : "people of the east" occupied Pwel mapu or Puel mapu, the eastern lands.
  • Pikunche : "people of the north" occupied Pikun-mapu, the "northern lands".
  • Williche : "people of the south" occupied Willi mapu, the "southern lands".
  • Pewenche : "people of the pewen " occupied Pewen mapu, "the land of the pewen".
  • Lafkenche: "people of the sea" occupied Lafken mapu, "the land of the sea"; also known as Coastal Mapuche.
  • Nagche: "people of the plains" occupied Nag mapu, "the land of the plains". Its epic and literary name is Araucanians and its old autochthonous name is Reche. The ancient Mapuche Toqui like Lef-Traru, Kallfülikan or Pelontraru were Nagche.
  • Wenteche: "people of the valleys" occupied Wente mapu, "the land of the valleys".

    History

Pre-Columbian period

Archaeological finds have shown that Mapuche culture existed in Chile and Argentina as early as 600 to 500 BC. Genetically the Mapuche differ from the adjacent Indigenous peoples of Patagonia. This suggests a "different origin or long-lasting separation of Mapuche and Patagonian populations".
Troops of the Inca Empire are reported to have reached the Maule River and had a battle with the Mapuche between the Maule and the Itata Rivers there. The southern border of the Inca Empire is believed by most modern scholars to have been situated between Santiago and the Maipo River, or somewhere between Santiago and the Maule River. Thus, the bulk of the Mapuche escaped Inca rule. Through their contact with Incan invaders Mapuches would have for the first time met people with state organizations. Their contact with the Incas gave them a collective awareness distinguishing between them and the invaders and uniting them into loose geo-political units despite their lack of state organization.
At the time of the arrival of the first Spaniards to Chile, the largest Indigenous population concentration was in the area spanning from the Itata River to Chiloé Islandthat is the Mapuche heartland. The Mapuche population between Itata River and Reloncaví Sound has been estimated at 705,000–900,000 in the mid-sixteenth century by historian José Bengoa.

Arauco War

The Spanish expansion into Mapuche territory was an offshoot of the conquest of Peru. In 1536, Diego de Almagro set out to conquer Chile, after crossing the Itata River they were intercepted by a numerous contingent of Araucanian Mapuche armed with many bows and pikes in the Battle of Reynogüelén. Discouraged by the ferocity of the Mapuches, and the apparent lack of gold and silver in these lands, Almagro decided upon a full retreat the following year to Peru. In 1541, Pedro de Valdivia reached Chile from Cuzco and founded Santiago. The northern Mapuche tribes, known as Picunches had recently gained independence from Inca rule, being commanded by Michimalonco, who had defeated the Inca governor Quilicanta. It would be the same Michimalonco who would lead the Picunche resistance against the Spanish between 1541 and 1545. His most famous achievement is the Destruction of Santiago.
File:El joven Lautaro - P. Subercaseaux.PNG|thumb|left|upright=1.4|Painting El joven Lautaro of Pedro Subercaseaux
In 1550, Pedro de Valdivia, who aimed to control all of Chile to the Straits of Magellan, campaigned in south-central Chile to conquer more Mapuche controlled territory. Between 1550 and 1553, the Spanish founded several cities in Mapuche lands including Concepción, Valdivia, Imperial, Villarrica, and Angol. The Spanish also established the forts of Arauco, Purén, and Tucapel. Further efforts by the Spanish to gain more territory engaged them in the Arauco War against the Mapuche, a sporadic conflict that lasted nearly 350 years. Hostility towards the conquerors was compounded by the lack of a tradition of forced labor akin to the Inca mit'a among the Mapuche, who largely refused to serve the Spanish.
From their establishment in 1550 to 1598, the Mapuche frequently laid siege to Spanish settlements in Araucanía. In 1553, the Mapuches held a council at which they resolved to make war. They chose as their "toqui" a strong man called Caupolicán and as his vice toqui Lautaro, because he had served as an auxiliary to the Spanish cavalry; he created the first Mapuche cavalry corps. With six thousand warriors under his command, Lautaro attacked the fort at Tucapel. The Spanish garrison was unable to withstand the assault and retreated to Purén. Lautaro seized and burned the fort and prepared his army certain that the Spaniards would attempt to retake Tucapel. Valdivia mounted a counter-attack, but he was quickly surrounded. He and his army was massacred by the Mapuches in the Battle of Tucapel. In 1554 Lautaro went to destroy Concepción where in the Battle of Marihueñu he defeated Governor Villagra and devastated the city. In 1555 Lautaro went to the city of Angol and destroyed it, he also returned to Concepción, rebuilt by the Spanish and destroyed it again. In 1557 Lautaro headed with his army to destroy Santiago, fighting numerous battles with the Spanish along the way, but he and his army were devastated in the Battle of Mataquito.
From 1558 to 1598, war was mostly a low-intensity conflict. Mapuche numbers decreased significantly following contact with the Spanish conquerors and settlers; wars and epidemics decimated the population. Others died in Spanish-owned gold mines.
File:Grabado Caupolican-Nicanor Plaza.jpg|thumbnail|Caupolican by Nicanor Plaza
In 1598 a party of warriors from Purén led by Pelantaro, who were returning south from a raid in the Chillán area, ambushed Governor Martín García Óñez de Loyola and his troops in the Battle of Curalaba while they rested without taking any precautions against attack. Almost all the Spaniards died, save a cleric named Bartolomé Pérez, who was taken prisoner, and a soldier named Bernardo de Pereda. Led by Pelantaro the Mapuche then initiated a general uprising that destroyed all the cities in their homeland south of the Biobío River.
In the years following the Battle of Curalaba, a general uprising developed among the Mapuches and Huilliches led to the Destruction of the Seven Cities. The Spanish cities of Angol, Imperial, Osorno, Santa Cruz de Oñez, Valdivia, and Villarrica were either destroyed or abandoned. The city of Castro was taken by a Dutch-Mapuche alliance in 1599, but reconquered by the Spanish in 1600. Only Chillán and Concepción resisted Mapuche sieges and raids. Except for the Chiloé Archipelago, all Chilean territory south of the Bíobío River was freed from Spanish rule. Despite continued Spanish attempts to reconquer the territories south of the Biobio River, the border remained stable during the centuries in which the Spanish reigned in South America. In this period the Mapuche Nation crossed the Andes to conquer the present Argentine provinces of Chubut, Neuquen, La Pampa, Buenos Aires and Río Negro. Historians disagree over the time period during which the expansion took place, but estimate it occurred roughly between 1550 and 1850.