The Mapuche Museum of Cañete (1968–2010): Decolonising the Gaze

Abstract

This article examines the history of the state-run Mapuche Museum of Cañete in southern Chile. It analyses its multiple and shifting representations of Mapuche culture and history in the context of broader changes in indigenous-state relations, and shows how the museum has both contributed to and been impacted by these changes. Focusing mainly on the conceptual and physical transformations undertaken since a Mapuche woman, Juana Paillalef, was appointed director in 2001, it argues that this colonial institution no longer merely displays the culture of its local Mapuche community, but is also controlled by that community. Reshaped and reinterpreted thus, the museum provides a compelling insight into both the achievements and the limitations of neoliberal multiculturalism in Chile.

Notes

 1 During the early 1500s, the Spanish conquistadors established forts throughout Mapuche territory. The Mapuche organised a strong military resistance campaign, however, and by 1641 had destroyed many of these forts, and signed treaties with the Spanish colonial authorities that recognised the lands between the Bío Bío and Toltén rivers as independent Mapuche territory. In 1862 the Chilean state embarked on a series of military incursions into the ‘frontier region’; the process was concluded on 1st January 1883 when army troops occupied Villarrica. According to the official census of 2002, approximately 25% of Cañete's population is Mapuche today.

 2 Salas recalls the event on his blog http://culturaancestral.blogspot.com.

 3 There are numerous other Mapuche museums in the southern regions, but they are not run by the central state apparatus: for example, the Museo Mapuche de Purén, the Museo Mapuche de Pucón and the Museo Mapuche y Galería de Arte de Nueva Imperial. The Museo Regional de la Araucanía in Temuco, which focuses mainly (although not exclusively) on the region's indigenous history, is part of DIBAM, but does not have a Mapuche director.

 4 The nguillatún is a collective ritual during which Mapuche people ask the spirit world to bring fertility and abundance to their community. In recent years, it has also been used to ask for help and courage to defend their lands.

 5 Letter to Antonio Millape, head of the Dirección de Asuntos Indígenas in Temuco, 3 February 1971. This (and later) correspondence between the museum director and other state authorities was found in the Archivo del Museo Mapuche de Cañete. I have included it in the bibliography under Dirección del Museo Mapuche de Cañete, Oficios Despachados.

 6 In the letter cited above, Brousse Soto asked Millape to send him all the documents pertaining to the Mapuche National Congress which had recently taken place in Temuco.

 7 ‘Actual situación del museo y las necesidades para su normal desarrollo durante el presente año’ (report dated and sent to DIBAM on 26 September 1971).

 8 According to Maillard, Mege and Palacios (2002: 57), the Agrupación de Amigos del Museo de Cañete had no Mapuche members in the early years.

 9 This lack of interest in Cañete's museum contrasted starkly with its interventions in the National History Museum in Santiago. See Crow (2009).

10 For a fascinating first-hand account of the occupation campaigns from a Mapuche perspective see Coña 1930 [2006].

11 Doris Kuhlman donated the photographs to the museum, having inherited them from her grandparents in 1995. Andrea Rioseco Gómez, a photographer from the nearby city Concepción, was responsible for their restoration and for assembling the display.

12 Merriman (1991).

13 See www.dibam.cl/sdm_mm_canete.

14 Take 2008, for example. In January the museum organised a children's painting competition ‘Yo pinto el museo a mi pinta’ (‘Painting the museum as I see it’; Paillalef wanted to know what children thought of the museum after they had visited it). It also arranged an interactive pottery workshop for women, which was inspired by photographs of people practising the craft in the early twentieth century. Afterwards, some of the participants requested that the photographic exhibition be taken out to their communities; the museum agreed. In March, the museum set up a meeting between the local tourist board and CONADI (National Council of Indigenous Development) regional director to discuss ethnotourism initiatives in the region. In April, the museum coordinated a ceremony in honour of Juan Segundo Huenupil, a community leader from Tirua who had recently died. That same month it sponsored training sessions on Mapuche silvercraft, run by Juan Painecura. In May, staff from the museum gave talks at two local colleges, explaining the work being done at the museum and inviting feedback from the students. In July, local school children came and planted trees in the museum's garden. In August, it became involved in a new CONADI project, encouraging contemporary artists to promote Mapuche cultural expression in urban spaces (on this occasion Chillán and Concepción). In November the Mapuche Association of Lebu chose to celebrate its anniversary at the museum. Finally, the museum sponsored its seventh Mapuche language course, which involved biweekly classes over a period of two months. The latter was a direct response to ‘the requirements of [the museum's] visiting public, especially Mapuche communities’. Details on all these activities can be found in the press archive on the museum's website www.dibam.cl/sdm_mm_canete.

15 The exact name on the sign outside the museum is Museo Mapuche de Cañete, Ruka Kimvn Taiñ Volil, Juan Cayupi Huechicura. ‘Ruka Kimvn Taiñ Volil’ translated into Spanish is ‘Casa del Conocimiento de Nuestras Raíces’ (Home of Knowledge about our Origins). The official name, as passed by Congress, is slightly different: the part in Mapuzungun reads ‘Ruka Moñen Tayu Folil’. According to Paillalef, as cited in Alvarez (2010), the meaning is very similar.

16 For example, Ximena Vidal. See Gobierno de Chile, 2010a: 17.

17 ‘El Museo Mapuche de Cañete avanza en su modernización’, posted 15 January 2010 on www.dibam.cl.