Mapuche religion
Communal prayer ceremonies are termed ngillatun and involve the provision of offerings and animal sacrifice.
From the 1990s, Mapuche religion underwent a revitalisation, with greater visibility and efforts to use it to encourage tourism.
This syncretism has brought about several variations and differences of these core beliefs as they have become assimilated within Chilean, Argentine and even Mapuche culture.
[9] Ngünechen first appeared in Mapuche religion during the 19th century; it has been argued that the introduction of this deity was a response to the Chilean national hierarchies.
[15] The witranalwe takes the form of a thin Spaniard on a horse; his wife is the small, luminescent añchümalleñ, who sucks people's blood.
[16] Sun and moon worship among the Mapuche have parallels among the Central Andean peoples and the Inca religion.
[17] Mapuche, Quechua and Aymara words for the sun and the moon appear to be a borrowing from Puquina language.
[18] Thus the parallels in cosmology may be traced back to the days of the Tiwanaku Empire in which Puquina is thought to have been an important language.
[18] In Mapuche traditional belief, the cosmos consists of three vertical planes, each of which comprises a different force that remains in conflict with the other two.
Mapuche traditional religion teaches that humans, other animals, and natural phenomena all have a trata, or body, as well as a distinct spiritual essence.
[21] The continuing relationship of mutual dependence between the living and their ancestors is an important facet of Mapuche traditional religion.
[22] If ancestral spirits do not feel they are being acknowledged they may return to the land of the living to remind their descendants of their obligations.
[13] Mapuche traditionalists believe that the spirits call certain individuals to become machi, sending them dreams (pewma) and visions (perimontum).
They may inherit their machi spirit from a deceased machi from their material family; experience direct initiation in the midst of a powerful natural event like an earthquake or lightning; or they may experience a vision called the perimontum in which a spirit appears before them.
[41] At their home, machis will have a timber pole called a rewe ("the purest"), alternatively referred to as the foye or canelo.
[46] Often, four items are placed inside the drum; two of these are regarded as male and may include darts, bullets, foye leaves, charcoal or volcanic rocks, while the other two are regarded as female and can include maize, seeds, wool, or kopiwe flowers.
[42] The goatskin will be decorated with a painted cross, representing the meli witran mapu, or fourfold division of the world.
[48] These involve prayers and animal sacrifices and are believed to maintain balance among cosmic forces and avoid catastrophe.
[52] The ngillatuwe represents an axis mundi, [52] It is located inside the ngillatun fields, which are deemed sacred and left uncultivated.
[13] In the Mapuche traditional worldview, the kalku and the machi play a role in balancing the conflicting forces in the cosmos.
[11] Those machi who transgress social norms or acquire significant wealth and prestige are sometimes accused of being kalku.
[13] Non-Mapuche, or wingka, or often assumed to be kalku, as they are perceived as being wealthier than most Mapuche and as valuing individual gain above communal well-being.
[61] To do this they will look into their patient's eyes, examine urine samples, drum over their worn clothes, or conduct the uluntun, a diagnostic ritual involving prayers, massages, and rattles.
[64] Members of the reservation often feel obliged to attend the funeral, with non-attendance casting suspicion that they may have had a hand in the individual's death.
[15] It has been noted that some symbols and aspects of the Andean religion are present among Mapuches and Huilliche whose lands lay well beyond the border of the former Inca Empire.
[16] In 2002, the scholar Cristián Parker Gumucio argued that a greater number of Mapuche were willing to admit practicing their traditional religion than in prior decades, part of a "new climate of respect and recognition".
[72] In the 1990s, various Mapuche began commodifying aspects of their traditional religion for ethnotourism, for instance performing ceremonies for tourist audiences, arguing that this commodification was acceptable so long as machi benefitted.
[73] Tensions within Mapuche communities over these commodifications often involved accusations and counter-accusations of witchcraft,[74] as well as claims that machi commodifying the religion were punished by their spirits.
[75] A 2001 survey of 352 Mapuche people from Chol-Chol and San Juan de la Costa found that 8 percent described themselves as followers of Mapuche traditional religion, while an additional 3.1 percent described following both traditional religion and Catholicism.
[1] Evangelical and Pentecostal Christian groups have often gone among Mapuche communities and denounced traditional religious practices as witchcraft and superstition, claiming that they involve interaction with demons.
