Negotiating Inclusion in the Nation: Mapuche Intellectuals and the Chilean State

Abstract

This article examines the discourses of three Mapuche intellectuals–Manuel Manquilef, Manuel Aburto Panguilef and Venancio Coñuepán–all of whom played an important role in the creation and development of an indigenous rights movement in Chile. It emphasizes the diversity of Mapuche politics and intellectuality, mapping out the multiple ways in which Manquilef, Panguilef and Coñuepán confronted the state but also negotiated with it. Drawing on a wide range of material, including congress debates, newspapers and published writings, it explores the different ways in which they imagined and re-imagined indigenous identity, as part of their campaign to be treated as fully-fledged citizens of the Chilean nation.

Keywords:

• Mapuche intellectuals
• nation-building
• race
• culture
• history
• land ownership

Notes

Notes

[1] These details appear on the website for the Chilean National Congress (http://biografias.bcn.cl).

[2] As part of a larger effort to ‘declassify’ Mapuche historical sources, Menard and Pavez have made available on line the Actas of two of the Araucanian Congresses led by Aburto (see www.desclasificacion.org). Aburto's manuscripts, reproduced in fragments by Menard (2003), should be available in book form soon.

[3] The seminal work of Foerster and Montecino (1988), which traces the history of the Mapuche political movement between 1910 and 1970 as reported in the regional and national press, provides many helpful references on all three leaders. I was able to locate many of the original articles in the hemeroteca of the National Library.

[4] This poster is accessible online (www.loncomuseomuni.blogspot.com).

[5] As narrated by Bacigalupo, machi have called on ancestral and natural spirits to intervene and defend their communities in recent struggles against local landowners, logging companies and other intruders.

[6] According to La Epoca of Loncoche, ‘the great leader of Araucanía’ was arrested three times during the 1920s and 1930s for ‘pro-communist’ activities (24 May 1952, p. 1).

[7] Mallon (2010) claims that Aburto went so far as to provide specific map coordinates for this territory.

[8] As outlined by Raymond Williams (1976), the term ‘ethnic’–in a sense close to folk, referring to cultural characteristics such as dress and music–was not in common use until the mid-20th century.

[9] ‘Araucanian’ was a term that the Spanish conquistadores invented to refer to the indigenous people they ‘discovered’ living in central-southern Chile. Most people who self-identify as Mapuche today reject Araucanian as a colonialist designation that relegates them to the past, but during the early 20th century there were still many Mapuche who referred to themselves as araucanos.

[10] Such distinctions also appeared in his writings. In Comentarios del pueblo araucano, for example, there is a photograph entitled ‘Semi-civilised Indian girls’ (Manquilef, 1914, p. 116).

[11] As Menard and Pavez (2005b) have shown, Aburto also understood racial identity to be constructed through writing, in particular through legislation and historical documents, hence his recitations of La Araucana, his references to the legal treaties signed between the Mapuche and the Spanish in colonial times, and his enthusiasm to archive all material relating to Araucanian Federation and the Araucanian Congresses.