Mapuche Culture

The native peoples of the new world faced numerous hardships when people from the western half of the world immigrated to north, central, and south America. The Araucanian peoples of south-central Chile was no exception. Like other native groups in the Americas, they faced harsh labor systems, disease, and colonization by European powers. However, unlike the others, the Araucanian peoples, also known today as the Mapuche, were able to successfully fend off against foreign invaders. How did the Araucanians succeed? What did they do in their wars against the Spanish that resulted in their success? The answer lies in both adaptation and rejection. The Mapuche were able to change and adapt their fighting style in order to better fend off foreign

invaders, but the Mapuche also resisted adaptation to Spanish culture, meaning that the Mapuche peoples’ core culture survives and remains near unchanged today. These two opposite actions helped differentiate the Mapuche from all other people in the area.
The Araucanian people of south-central Chile can be divided into three groups, based on the north, central, and south bands, all split by a river called the Bio Bio river. The Picunche lived north of the Bío Bío river, the Mapuche in the central band between the Bio Bio river and Toltén river, and the Huilliche, who lived south of the Bío Bío River.1 Before Spanish colonization, these people lived simple semi-nomadic lives, occasionally going to war and at one point, the northern Picunche was taken over by the Inca briefly.2 The three groups were hunter-gatherers and they all spoke the same language, but before Spanish aggression, they had little political and cultural unity.2
Once the Spanish forces started to invade south-central Chile, the Araucanians started to put up a fight. Initially, the group lost their battles against the Spaniards and they were placed into labor systems in order to mine silver for the Spanish.3 The Araucanians were placed under the mita labor system for a short while until eventually, the Spanish abuses became too much and resulted in a wide scale attack that ended rather successfully, with burned colonies and an evicted Spanish population.4
How did the Mapuche succeed this time? What was different? The major break for the Mapuche were through a Mapuche spy who gone by the name Lautaro. When the leader of the Spanish exhibition, Pedro de Valdivia, returned to Santiago with his men, a young boy named Lautaro followed along as an orphan.5 Valdivia took him in as his groom, and in Santiago, Lautaro, now named either Felipe or Antonio, learned all about horse keeping, Spanish culture, and most importantly, Spanish military drills.5 Learning these drills as a young boy allowed Lautaro to teach his people the weaknesses found in the foreign army. Eventually, Lautaro returned to his people and was eventually named toqui, or leader, of his people.6 Lautaro’s espionage as well as keen observations from warriors and the skilled thefts by other Mapuche gave them the upper hand in future battles.6 Additionally, the natives of the area received some aid from Spanish deserters, with 60 Spaniards living among them by 1600.7 These deserters would then teach the Mapuche firearms, fort building, iron making, and some political administration techniques.7 The last lesson, a lesson on political administration techniques, would change the Mapuche social structure forever.
The most striking adaptation that the Mapuche used in order to defeat the invading Spanish was the use of horses on the battle field. Horses and other large ridable animals did not exist in South America before Spanish colonization, the only large hoofed animals were camelids like llamas, alpacas, and vicunas. Horses, now introduced to the new world, was a huge problem for the Mapuche people. In order to adapt to the cavalry forces, the Mapuche created pitfalls and trenches to knock the rider off of their horses, as well as creating sharp steaks to impale both the horse and the man.8 The greatest adaptation, however, was the eventual adoption of horses, aided by the information Lautaro gave his people. Natives eventually stole horses to use in raids.8 They did this by following horsemen on foot and striking down riders. This task was simplified due to the rider’s heavy equipment that slowed him down.8 Once the rider was thrown off and killed, the natives kept the horses for themselves. The Araucanians were able to outpace a horse because the people were used to chasing down game for food.9 In a final feat of adaptation, the Mapuche people invented a better, more lightweight saddle that was less heavy on the horse and allowed two riders to ride on a steed’s back.10 These dual saddles gave the Mapuche a greater advantage during battle, because it allowed for one Mapuche to drive the horse, and the other to shoot arrows or swing a club. The adaptation to horses may be one of the greatest alterations to the Mapuche fighting style.
Another clever use of adaptation lies in the choice of battle fields. The Mapuche are a people of the land, highly adapted to life in the mountains. One of the many ways the Mapuche were able to avoid catastrophic death was by choosing to fight in the mountains. By choosing these types of environments, the Mapuche could ensure that the enemy’s horses could not gallop as well and that their own ambush strategies were more effective while hidden away in the mountains.11 Another way the Mapuche had used their natural environment to their advantage was through the use of thick and wild forests and wet and muddy wetlands. The thick forests

were hard to navigate for the foreign Spaniards, and it made riding on horseback harder.12 Additionally, the wetlands that surrounded the areas made the Spaniards’ gunpowder less effective.12 The Mapuche quickly realized that the Spanish were weak in the forest, and when the Spanish came along and the Mapuche needed to hide, the group of natives would flee into the forest to hide, using the forest for shelter, nourishment, and occasionally, a battle ground.13
Additionally, a great adaptation and advantage that the fighting Araucanians used was the exploitation of the Spanish army’s weaknesses. Again accredited to Lautaro’s espionage, the Mapuche saw the Spanish’s weakness and desire for peace and fully exploited it. The Mapuche strategy was more powerful than their weapons and one strategy they would use involved playing on the fear of Indian congregation. A Mapuche native would spread a rumor of a group of Indians meeting, and the concerned Spanish men would come to investigate.14 The rumor, however was an ambush and the Mapuche natives would surround a startled Spanish man. (ibid) The Spanish man would then drop his supplies and flee, giving them all the leather, food, and weapons they need to strengthen themselves for the next major battle.14 Another psychological warfare strategy the Mapuche used was fear of their “savageness” They learned that the Spanish was scared of cannibals, so the Mapuche ritually ate the Spanish invaders in order to scare them.15 The leader of the Spanish was killed in this way. Valdivia had the muscles cut from his arms and legs, had his own flesh cooked and ate in front of him, and then they eventually cut out his heart and beheaded him, turning the skull of the Spanish captain into a drinking vessel for the toqui leaders of the area.16 Additionally, the Mapuche exploited the Spanish troop’s relative isolation. The Mapuche would conduct raids to destroy and crops and food that the Spanish might have and they would then destroy their own crops, preventing the Spanish from stealing
any of it.17 The Mapuche would then rely on the native forests and their knowledge of edible plants in order to survive, while the clueless Spaniards slowly starved.17
The Mapuche utilized different types of adaptations in order to resist Spanish aggression onto their lands, but one of the few aspects of war that wasn’t changed, or at least was barely changed, was their use of weaponry. While some Mapuche were able to access guns and advanced European weaponry and iron making, the grand majority of the Mapuche warriors used their traditional wooden weapons. These weapons, although basic, still gave an advantage to the Mapuche warriors. These weapons could be made quickly and easily, as well as be made from their surroundings. Various hardwood trees made clubs and spears, softwoods made bows, and bamboo made arrows.18 One of their most famous weapon is a curved daggered called a corvo that was used to fence.19 The Spanish had to wait until Spanish iron workers sent them weapons from Spain.18 Additionally, the Mapuche continued their style of martial arts called Kollellaullin, which involved preparing the mind and body by observing ants.20 Weapons were the only aspect to Mapuche warfare that did not need to be changed.
While the aspect of Mapuche warfare was changed greatly during the battles with the Spanish, the core culture of the Araucanians remained virtually unchanged throughout the colonial era.

The core change that occurred was the conglomeration of different tribes into one Mapuche nation, a large fighting force that can band together to fight off the Spanish, but also be naturally disbanded in order to prevent capture and subjugation as well as the adoption of a few Spanish goods, such as animals, some plants, and cloth. Other than the consolidation of Mapuche tribes, the Mapuche culture intensified during the era, escalating in order to assert Mapuche cultural dominance. While the core aspect of Mapuche culture remained the

same,
the Mapuche did adopt some goods from the Spanish. The Mapuche had adopted horses into their culture quite readily due to their use in war, agriculture, cattle raising, and even their own religious rites.21 Metallurgy was also used for firearms in the war as well as daily tools. One of the biggest adoptions was with Spanish alcohol.22 In fact, many Mapuche natives today still struggle with alcohol addiction, started from Spanish trade back in the 1500s.22
The culture of the Araucanians had always focused on kin and nature, with a major religious focus on shamanism. The Mapuche resisted most attempts at catholic conversion by the Spanish as well. Once the Spanish realized that they could not subjugate the Mapuche using warfare and force, the Spaniards decided to set up a system of missions along the Mapuche border in order to slowly convert them to Christianity.24 The Mapuche fully resisted this and ended up killing the priests, mutilating their bodies, and sending their bodies back to the Spanish as a warning. 23 The Mapuche were so dedicated to resisting Christianity and preserving their religion that they held their own Inquisition against Christianity.23 To the Mapuche, the preservation of their culture and religion was most important. The resistance to Christianity also leads to the intensification of their own religion. Machi, a type of shaman in Mapuche culture, conducted more religious festivals in order to predict the outcome of battles waged against the Spanish.25 Additionally, many Mapuche warriors had died in the ensuring battles so the construction of Kuels, or burial mounds, also increased and more and more shamans oversaw the creation and caretaking of Kuels.26 The Mapuche also believed in ancestor spirits called Pillans that would be traditionally called up in times of war.27 Eventually the Pillans all evolved into a

super Pillan who would be summoned when the Mapuche wanted to execute a Spanish captive.28
The other intensified action the Mapuche took was through the conglomeration and periodic unification of different tribes. In peaceful times, the Mapuche lived in scattered kin groups called rehues. They had no real king in these kin groups, only a chief called an ulmen.29 During war times, a central power emerged and unified many of the rehues together.29 This is what happened when the Spanish tried to overtake the Mapuche. Some of the ways that the different Mapuche tribes would unify was through ritualistic feasting, marriage between different tribes, and mobilizing labor.30 They also increased the amount of meeting between the different clans in order to strengthen these alliances.31 The Mapuche political order had a hierarchical order. The most powerful men were the toqui chiefs, who worked together to decide on strategies and decisions for war and peace.32 Under the toqui were the ulmen, under the ulmen were privates called cona and the noncommissioned officers were called cupilonko.33 Above these soldiers were a toqui-guilmen (commander), a quince-guilmen (field commander), and a peliqui-gulimen (diplomatic courier).34 All of these warriors and officers worked together and eventually created an intensified warring culture.34
The last major intensification to the Mapuche culture was their proclivity for war. The Spanish had pushed the occasional warring Mapuche into a war hawk nation, ready to attack invaders, defend their lands, and even expand territorial holdings. The Mapuche was able to expand into parts of Argentina, past their normal range, due to their extensive war system.35 The
Mapuche’s culture intensified completely for war. In order to pass on the love of war to the next generation, the Mapuche trained boys and youths from a young age to fight.36 Boys were taught how to use weapons when they were only six years old and when the boys were old enough, their teachers decided on what weapon they were most proficient at and that weapon would then be the weapon they specialized in for the rest of their training.36 The Mapuche boys were also trained in swimming, running, and even torture.36 The Mapuche was so bloodthirsty that they would attack and kill any neighboring native groups that suggested peaceful integration or peaceful resistance against the Spanish.37 For example, one tribe called the Promocaes did not want to join forces with Lautaro, leader of the Mapuche in the 1600s, and so Lautaro killed them in response.38 Despite the attacks, some of the Araucanians, mostly Picunche, were Hispanicized to some extent.
The Mapuche culture did not change overall during the colonial area, rather that, the culture intensified greatly in response to increasing pressures from foreign cultures.

The Mapuche intensified their political affiliations, their religion, their cultural celebrations, and their warrior ways. In the converse of this, the Mapuche fighting style changed and adapted greatly in order to adapt to the challenges they faced when fighting the Spaniards. These two methods of resistance allowed the Mapuche to survive colonization. To this day, the Mapuche people of Chile are known to be a fierce and proud group of people. Their resistance to the Spanish shows a clear reminder that the fate of natives in the new world was not uniform, that resistance can be successful for some native groups. The strong existence of the Mapuche today stands as the clearest testament to Indian

resistance.