Mapuche and Related Topics

La Araucana

16th-century epic poem in Spanish by Alonso de Ercilla, about the Spanish Conquest of Chile.

He occupied several positions in the household of Prince Philip (later King Philip II of Spain), before requesting and receiving appointment to a military expedition to Chile to subdue the Araucanians of Chile, he joined the adventurers.

SRTM map of the topography of Chile between the 40th and 41st parallel south. The Cunco inhabited the western (left) territory shown in the map. But not necessarily the northwest (top left).

Cunco people

Poorly known subgroup of Huilliche people native to coastal areas of southern Chile and the nearby inland.

SRTM map of the topography of Chile between the 41st and 42nd parallel south. Much the mainland seen here north of Carelmapu and Calbuco was depopulated as a consequence of a long running conflict between the Spanish and loyalist Indians on one side and Cuncos and Huilliches on the other side.

Distribution of the pre-Hispanic people of Chile.

A theory postulated by chronicler José Pérez García holds the Cuncos settled in Chiloé Island in Pre-Hispanic times as consequence of a push from more northern Huilliches who in turn were being displaced by Mapuches.

1960 Valdivia earthquake

The most powerful earthquake ever recorded.

The Valdivia earthquake released almost a quarter of all global seismic energy between 1906 and 2005

Travel time of the tsunami across the Pacific at one-hour intervals

Wrecks of Carlos Haverbeck (top) and Canelos (bottom).

Effect of the tsunami at Kamaishi, Japan

Eruption of Cordón Caulle following the earthquake

Destroyed infrastructure of Altos Hornos y Acerías de Corral, a steel factory closed a few years before the earthquake.

In the coastal village Collileufu (La Araucanía Region), native Lafkenches carried out a human sacrifice during the days following the main earthquake.

Purén

City (2002 pop.

In Mapuche language or Mapudungun Purén means swampy place.

Lautaro, hero of the Arauco war; Rayén Quitral outstanding soprano; Current Mapuche woman; Ceferino Namuncura blessed of the Catholic Church.

Battle of Curalaba

The Battle of Curalaba (Batalla de Curalaba ) is a 1598 battle and ambush where Mapuche people led by Pelantaru soundly defeated Spanish conquerors led by Martín García Óñez de Loyola at Curalaba, southern Chile.

Augusto Pinochet

Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of the Republic by the junta in 1974 and becoming the de facto dictator of Chile, and from 1981 to 1990 as de jure President after a new Constitution, which confirmed him in the office, was approved by a referendum in 1980.

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with Pinochet in 1976

Junta session one week after the 1973 coup

Pinochet meeting with U.S. President Jimmy Carter in Washington, D.C., September 6, 1977

Women of the Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared demonstrate in front of La Moneda Palace during the Pinochet military regime

Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean minister, was assassinated in Washington, D.C. in 1976.

Memorial to victims of Pinochet's regime

Pinochet as Commander-in-Chief and President Aylwin meeting with U.S. President George H. W. Bush in 1990

Pinochet congratulates new President Patricio Aylwin after handing over the presidential sash, marking the transfer of power from military dictatorship to democratic leadership, 11 March 1990.

Photographs of victims of Pinochet's regime

Image showing Pinochet in an event with background imagery comparing the year of Chilean independence, 1810, with 1973, the year of the coup d'état that brought Pinochet to power

Documentation of some of Pinochet's many United States bank accounts

Pinochet on the bier on 11 December 2006

In 1989 indigenous Mapuche groups representing the "Consejos Regionales" bestowed Pinochet the title Ulmen Füta Lonko or Great Authority.

Scientific racism

Pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism , racial inferiority, or racial superiority.

Homo monstrosus, or Patagonian giants, from Voyage au pole sud et dans l'Océanie (Voyage to the South Pole, and in Oceania), by Jules Dumont d'Urville

John Hunter. Painted by John Jackson in 1813, after an original by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who exhibited his painting at the Royal Academy in 1786.

A late-19th-century illustration by H. Strickland Constable shows an alleged similarity between "Irish Iberian" and "Negro" features in contrast to the higher "Anglo-Teutonic".

Portrait of Arthur de Gobineau by the Comtesse de la Tour, 1876

Racialist differences: "a Negro head ... a Caucasian skull ... a Mongol head", Samuel George Morton, 1839

Illustration from Types of Mankind (1854), whose authors Josiah Clark Nott and George Robins Gliddon implied that "Negroes" were a creational rank between "Greeks" and chimpanzees

Cephalic Index. William Z. Ripley's European cephalic index map, The Races of Europe (1899).

Madison Grant, creator of the "Nordic race" term

The Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology, founded in 1922, was the world's first government-funded institute performing research into racial biology. It was housed in what is now the Dean's house at Uppsala and was closed down in 1958.

He thought Chileans were a mix of two martial races: the indigenous Mapuches and the Visigoths of Spain, who descended ultimately from Götaland in Sweden.

Cañete, Chile

City and commune in Chile, located in the Arauco Province of the Biobío Region.

Two months later, native Mapuches destroyed the fort.

Mapuche silverwork

Drawing of a trapelacucha, a silver finery piece, 20th century.

Mapuche silverwork is one of the best known aspects of Mapuche material culture.

Catiguala, a cacique of the Huilliche in the 18th century

Huilliche language

Moribund branch of the Araucanian language family.

Huilliche is closely related to Mapudungun, the language of the Mapuche, though more research is needed to determine the degree of mutual intelligibility between the two.