Shamans’ Pragmatic Gendered Negotiations with Mapuche Resistance Movements and Chilean Political Authorities

Abstract

In this article, I look at the ways in which gendered national discourses and the discourses of Mapuche resistance movements coerce and construct shamans (machi) and the ways in which machi appropriate, transform, and contest these images. I explore the contradictions between machi’s hybrid practices and their traditional representations of self and why they choose to represent themselves as they do. My interest lies in the ways in which studying gendered representations by and about machi, especially machi’s nonideological political practices, can contribute to current discussions of power and resistance, agency and structure, and the practice of power itself. Recent anthropological work has focused on the particular historical, social, political, and economic contexts shaping how and why indigenous groups decide to protect and promote particular images of themselves. I focus not on the community politics in which machi are involved, but on machi’s public faces in relation to national political figures and Mapuche political leaders such as longko.

Keywords:

• Mapuche
• shaman
• Chile
• resistance
• state
• gender

I would like to thank José Mariman, Laurel Kendall, Steven Rubenstein, Jonathan Hill, Tom Dillehay, Patricia Richards, Gustavo Geirola, Peter van Deer Ver, Juan Carlos Gumucio, and four anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

1 When Mapuche protests against forestry companies began in 1997, Frei imposed the martial law of internal security and had Mapuche protesters arrested. He threatened to keep the Mapuche in line “by reason or by force,” as the Chilean coat of arms reads. For a description of the results in one community, see Marimán 1998.

2 Until the nineteenth century, voting rights were restricted to literate, taxpaying men, which effectively excluded Mapuche. The notion of political rights of all Chilean citizens was developed in the twentieth century.

3 The most notable resistance movements were those of Indians in Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, and Mexico (Chiapas) (Bengoa 2000: 2).

4 Chile is one of the few Latin American countries that has not ratified the International Treaty on Indigenous Peoples in Independent States, passed in Geneva in 1989, which states that “indigenous people should assume the control of their own institutions, ways of life and economic development and maintain and strengthen their identities, languages and religions with the context of the Chilean state in which they live” (Agreement 169 of the International Labor Organization). International Labour Organisation Convention No. 169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries. Adopted on 27 June 1989 by the General Conference of the International Labour Organization at its 76th session. Entry into force 5 September 1991. vedda.org/ilo169.htm. Accessed 4 November 2004.

5 The Corporation for National Development (CONADI) was created as an organization co-managed by indigenous people and the government, but in practice it is a state organization that implements government policies regarding indigenous issues and in which the opinion of the indigenous minority does not prevail.

6 Beth Conklin (2002: 1052) focuses on the public faces of shamans in Brazilian Amazonia.

7 The role of Mapuche shamans in the dichotomy of male and female spheres is similar to that of Korean shamans; see Kendall 1998: 62.

8 Patricia Richards (2004) demonstrates how the Chile National Service for Women (SERNAM) reflects this policy.

9 Although the Chilean state constructs itself as urban, it has assimilated traditional rural images of masculinity, combining images of the Spanish conquistador with those of the criollo landowner, or huaso, who becomes feudal lord and father through sexual and social exploitation of indigenous workers (Bengoa 1999; Valdés et al. 1995). Chileans may celebrate Mapuche men who participate in the project of the nation-state; for example, the public statue Roto Chileno glorifies blue–collar Chilean soldiers who protected the nation against the Peruvian– Bolivian Confederation in 1839. But, ultimately, it is the huaso, not the Mapuche roto, who is celebrated as a model of masculinity on Chilean Independence Day.

10 Among those detained have been the leaders of the resistance movement Coordinadora Arauco Malleko. Leaders Victor Ancalf and Mireya Figueroa and longkos Pichun and Norin have remained political prisoners for over a year without trial. There have also been documented cases of torture of Mapuche, secret investigations, the use of anonymous witnesses in trials against Mapuche, and sentences that are disproportionate to the alleged delinquent acts. This is contrasted with the impunity held by those who violate Mapuche rights. The policeman who killed the Mapuche Alex Lemun at a peaceful protest, for example, was set free (Cayuqueo and Painemal 2003; Muga 2004; Marimán 2004). Mapuche have characterized the Chilean democratic government as a “police state” (Cayuqueo and Painemal 2003).

11 Jonathan Hill and Susan Staats (2002) describe a similar process in Guyana.

12 National ideologies do not reflect the social organization of gender, but rather the ideological needs of the state. Male–female relations are often used to express power relationships between nation-states and indigenous subjects (Joan Scott 1999: 48). Nationalism and citizenship have traditionally been linked to heterosexual men and masculinities, whereas women, indigenous people, and effeminate homosexual men are marginalized. Theorists of nationalism have often used maleness and femaleness to distinguish between insiders and outsiders, respectively. In the same way that men and women are defined reciprocally (though never symmetrically), national identity is determined on the basis of what it (presumably) is not. With historical regularity, men tend to stand for national agents who determine the fate of nations in a metonymic relation to the nation as a whole. They are often imagined as rulers who claim the prerogatives of nation building (Mayer 2000: 2). In contrast, women and indigenous people are seen to function only symbolically or metaphorically—as signifiers of ethnic and national difference, marking the margins of nations—and as vehicles for male agency (Schein 2000: 107; Williams 1996: 6, 12).

13 The military dictator General Carlos Ibañez del Campo (president 1925–1931) called the Mapuche “lazy drunkards” ( El Araucano 1 February 1929).

14 Eighty percent of Chileans have some Indian blood, but racially or culturally mixed persons identify themselves as either Chilean or Mapuche and not as mestizo. Chilean social hierarchies based on race contrast with those of Peruvians, who reject biological “race” as a basis for discrimination in favor of cultural categories such as difference in education or manners. In Peru, indigenous grassroots intellectuals appropriate the label mestizo for self-identification. No indigenous social movement currently exists in Peru that rallies around ethnic identities (de la Cadena 2000: 323).

15 Anthropologists, too, have viewed female machi as bastions of the past and guardians of tradition, in opposition to Mapuche men, who practice politics and struggle to fit into Chilean gender models (Bacigalupo 1994, 1996; Degarrod 1998; Faron 1964; Stuchlik 1976; Titiev 1951). Indeed, anthropologists have portrayed female and male feminized shamans from around the world in terms of deprivation from male-dominant state apparatuses. Female possession is seen as peripheral (Lewis 1971) and as resisting the power of men (Boddy 1989; Lambek 1981). Female shamanism is often depicted as the product of women’s motherhood and fertility (Glass-Coffin 1998; Sered 1994). Women and feminized men are portrayed as having become shamans to compensate for their marginalization from state bureaucracies and institutionalized religions (Basilov 1997; Lewis 1971) or because of their peripheral social status or sexual deprivation (Obeyesekere 1981; Spiro 1967). Machi practice did become predominantly a woman’s occupation in the mid-eighteenth century as other Mapuche institutions gained political power. But the increasing feminization of machi practice should not be read through the discourse of deprivation from dominant state apparatuses. Machi have been females or feminized men since the sixteenth century, 300 years before the creation of the Chilean state, and most machi today are Catholic, as is the Chilean majority.

16 Contrary to Chilean national images of machi as static cultural artifacts, the interrelations between nationalism and shamanism are multifaceted, multidirectional, and dynamic (Hill and Staats 2002: 13; Thomas and Humphrey 1994: 4). Latin American shamans have shaped their own relationships with nation-states, just as shamanic traditions have helped shape local indigenous histories—which range from open resistance to state authorities to covert resistance through syncretistic mergings with state-sponsored religions and even conversion of entire indigenous societies (Brown 1991; Conklin 2002; Hill 1988; Langdon and Baer 1992). Anthropologists have explored how shamanism has often been the target of institutionalized religions and state powers (Anagnost 1987; Atkinson 1992: 315; Balzer 1990; Taussig 1987) and how it becomes marginalized, fragmented, and feminized in relation to the state (Hamayon 1990). They have addressed the transformation of indigenous systems under colonialism, the relations between shamanic activities and state cults, and the ways in which shamanic powers may be used as forms of political agency to mediate resistance or operate as markers of ethnic difference (Thomas and Humphrey 1994).

17 See Compra venta de Mapuches en valdivia ( Diario Austral. 25 October 1942) and Los araucanos ( El Mercurio 11 April 1930).

18 The Capuchin newspaper El Araucano celebrated these prohibitions between 1926 and 1928, claiming that ngillatun and machitun rituals were pagan, immoral, irrational, stupid, and ridiculous traditions that included the sacrifice of animals in abominable and inhuman ways ( El Araucano 1 August 1926; El Araucano 1 January 1928; El Araucano 1 April 1928). The newspaper constructed machi as frauds and their healing practices as “destructive,” lamenting that there were many machi and that their practices were increasingly popular ( El Araucano 4 January 1928).

19 For recent discussions of Mapuche resistance movements and proposals for autonomy, see Vergara 2000, Saavedra 2002, Campos 2002, and Foerster and Vergara 2003.

20 Isolde Reuque argues that the strength of the Mapuche movement came from the fact that communities used their cultural practices in political ways—to rebuild solidarity and participation and to stress the importance of development and unity—although some Mapuche movements involved confrontation and class conflict, not cultural strategies (2002: 113, 115, 148).

21 The value of female machi as instruments for strategic essentialism became obvious to me when I saw women who were not machi presented as machi during Mapuche protests and marches. A Mapuche man explained, “It is easier to bring ordinary Mapuche women to play the drum. There is less protocol to follow, and then if the protesters are drenched or beaten it is less embarrassing when the women are not machi… . As long as the journalists think they are machi, that’s fine.”

22 Aucan Huilcaman argues that there are conflicts among Mapuche who look indigenous but have Chilean minds, those who are Mapuche both racially and culturally, and those who neither look nor act like Mapuche, but feel Mapuche because their grandfather belonged to a community (Morin 1999).

23 In 1860, Orelie Antoine de Tournens, a French citizen, and the Mapuche created the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia. This kingdom was never recognized by the Chilean state, but remained alive in the Mapuche imagination. In April 1989, Prince Philippe from France visited Chile as the successor of Orelie-Antonie de Tournens, king of Araucania and Patagonia. Philippe recognized the traditional authority of machi and longko near Temuco and said that his purpose was to help the Mapuche regain their sovereignty and territorial autonomy (Marhikewun 1989). Mapuche organizations supported Philippe’s visit, but the Chilean media reported that those organizations protested Philippe’s presence because it threatened the sovereignty of the Chilean nation. A man who claimed to be longko Kilapan rejected Philippe’s presence in Chile because it threatened Chilean sovereignty.

24 Saavedra (2002) argues that the Mapuche do not propose to be an independent nation, but the discourses of the Mapuche resistance movements themselves and the work of other academics such as Vergara (2000), Foerster and Vergara (2003), and Campos (2002) prove the contrary.

25 The Mapuche intellectuals Rosamel Millaman and José Quidel argue that traditional political alliances between Mapuche lineages should be revitalized and made permanent in order to create large, independent Mapuche political organizations.

26 Indigenous mobilizations of “authentic” tradition involve an ambivalent mix of local empowerment, self-stereotyping, alliance, and chauvinism, while differently positioned audiences consume cultural performances for tourists or by the “savage” (Clifford 2000; Conklin 1997).

27 Some researchers, such as Alejandro Saavedra, have drawn on notions of tradition as static and immutable to argue that Mapuche culture and identity are being lost (Saavedra 2002: 208–11, 263) and that the Mapuche problem is not primarily an ethnic one, but one of poverty and social class (Saavedra 2002: 111, 143, 190). Saavedra argues that Mapuche have multiple social identities, but draws on the ideological categories of Chilean national society to construct the Mapuche mainly as rural salaried workers or peasants (2002: 37–45). Such preconceived notions have made it difficult for researchers to comprehend the dynamics of Mapuche culture and the emergence of Mapuche urban identities. Andrea Aravena (2002) demonstrates that migration and distancing from rural community life do not do away with Mapuche identity, but create new identities centered on different Mapuche organizations. In the urban context, ritual plays an important role in the affirmation of Mapuche identity and the recovery of their cultural and political systems.

28 Anthropologists have argued that autonomy exercised within a defined territory does not meet the needs of native peoples in the contemporary world and ignores the political consequences of indigenous economic and social dispersion. The assumption of a unitary identity for intercommunity political action contradicts the promise of a plurinational system with alternative political values and the application of indigenous power in ever-wider settings of the state, market, and civil society (Colloredo-Mansfeld 2002; Legaré 1995). Mapuche essentialist notions of a traditional, utopic motherland also conflict with Mapuche proposals of “development with identity,” which combine ecological interests with technological innovation (Ancan 1997; Chihuailaf 1999: 123) and the development of Mapuche industries. Members of Mapuche resistance movements, however, are interested not in accounting for the diverse ideals, values, and realities of the predominantly migrant, urban Mapuche, but in creating a homogeneous image based on tradition and a utopian homeland for the purpose of political mobilization. This preoccupation with territorial enclaves and unifying identities can become a form of “nested nationalism” in which the autonomy and diversity of indigenous people is carefully organized and simplified by the national categories that created the indigenous problem in the first place (Colloredo-Mansfeld 2002; James Scott 1999: 4). Mapuche cultural revitalization through essentialist discourses should be read as a strategic process of political articulation and cultural hybridization, not as a nostalgic escape to the past (Clifford 1988; Warren 1998: 171).

29 Anthropologists have argued that in places where a rural land base has come to stand for indigenous society, native communities have been forced to recover the territorial base usurped from them by colonizers (Keesing 1989: 29; Rappaport and Dover 1996: 30).

30 Entregan fundo a comunidad Mapuche Antonio Ñirripil, Diario Austral. 7 April 2001; Convocan a ngillatun para reestablecer confianzas, Diario Austral. 19 April 2001.

31 A man from a Mapuche organization in Santiago argued, “Development is a form of asssimilation. Neoliberal policies associated with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been detrimental to us. We propose a subsistence economy. Capitalist development is lineal and infinite; we have to limit that.” Other Mapuche argue that their future depends on having control over their resources and participating in Mapuche development projects, not those that benefit the Chilean state.Most Mapuche oppose the neoliberal economic models applied by the Chilean state. Over thirty Mapuche organizations drafted a letter to the members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ministers who met in Pucón on 4 and 5 June 2002, asking them not to impose liberal trade relations in Chile as they are detrimental to indigenous people (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization 6 June 2004.)

32 José Marimán points out that many Mapuche speak about the importance of maintaining “uncontaminated tradition” but incorporate many aspects of modern technology and the urban world into their everyday lives. He points out that Mapuche society and culture were always permeable to cultural borrowings and that most Mapuche leaders have links with urban and outside cultural influences (Marimán 2004).

33 Diario Austral. 21 December 2000; Diario Austral. 19 January 2001; Diario Austral. 1 June 2001; Diario Austral. 15 March 2001; Diario Austral. 21 March 2001; Diario Austral. 17 January 2001.

34 This image recalls the Gary Larson cartoon of “natives” stowing the TV and VCR as figures in pith helmets come up the path, over the caption, “Anthropologists! Anthropologists!”

35 In Venezuela, ironically, the celebration of the Day of the Monkey is constructed as local and indigenous, while its most important validation is derived from national media and the state (Guss 2000: 81).

36 At the same time, the high market value of machi practice has led some Mapuche to steal and resell sacred objects on the black market. Machi José said, “In Santiago there were eight old rewes that had been stolen from some communities in the south and they brought them to sell them for eight hundred dollars each. I stood the rewes up and prayed to them so that they would not punish the people involved and we left them at the Centro de Investigaciones until they found out which communities the rewes belonged to” (interview 17 December 2001).

37 This strategy has also been used by some Mapuche feminist movements. Isolde Reuque (2002: 216–217) avoided becoming involved with political parties for many years, because political parties divide Mapuche social organizations and movements. Mapuche organizations, however, often run by men, prefer to engage with Mapuche who have the backing of specific political parties. Isolde finally joined the Christian Democratic party in order to have weight and influence in Mapuche social organizations and political systems.

38 The Ecuadorian Otavalo practice a translocal relational autonomy linked to the geographic mobility of peasant careers (Colloredo-Mansfeld 2002).

39 Isolde Reuque (2002: 227, 232–235) argues that male Mapuche leaders draw on an outdated machismo in order to marginalize women in the realm of politics. They do not recognize Mapuche women’s roles and do not like for Mapuche women to speak in public or hold formal political positions of power.

40 Machi Sergio stated, “When Chile almost went to war with Argentina and there were trenches and tunnels here down south, I was ready to volunteer to fight for my General Pinochet and our country Chile.” Sergio believed Pinochet upheld Mapuche tradition, whereas the return to democracy under a civilian government has seen the birth of numerous native rights groups that, he says, are not very representative: “We, the Mapuche, have progressed a little because of this, but we still will never be in agreement about the land which was taken away from us. We will never approve completely of any government, but of the Chilean presidents, Pinochet was the best. Some Mapuche are not so bright and allow themselves to be manipulated by the socialists.”

41 See, for example, the video Ngillatun, Rogativa Mapuche, made by ICTUS–Grupo Pasos in 1992.