Pichi peuma hue full#

Tren Tren, in an effort to protect the Mapuche, raised the land high enough for some of the Mapuche to reach higher ground and survive the watery wrath of Kai-Kai filu. Mapuche mythology teaches that “way back in time”, the sea serpent Kai-Kai filu rose up and began to flood the land, threatening the entire population with his fury, to punish the Mapuche for misuse of the land resulting in serious imbalance between the seven elements that together make up the biodiversity (Ixofillmogen) of life. In a third corner is a huge carving of the struggle between the good serpent Tren Tren which protects the land and the Mapuche people, and the bad serpent Kai-Kai filu which represents the fury of the seas when it observes misuse of the land.

It made sense for Gerry to make this visit to Araucanía with me, because when we worked together as Peace Corps staff in Chile in the late 1970s, we placed many Peace Corps Volunteers in Mapuche communities in the area around Nueva Imperial to work in rural health, agriculture, school garden, and artisan projects.Gerry and I met Onesima at midday in the Nueva Imperial central plaza, a beautiful space framed by imposing wooden sculptures in each corner, carved by Mapuche artist Ildefonso Quilempan.Īt one corner of the plaza sits the first Mapuche Lonko Juan Luishuenul, and at another a sculpture of the Choike Purrun magical-religious dance.

Pichi peuma hue full#

Ximena was not able to join me and my old Peace Corps buddy and erstwhile travelling partner from the US, Flick, was not in Chile, so I coaxed my friend and colleague Gerry, who lives full time with his Chilean wife in Santiago, to accompany me on this visit. We kept in touch over the next few months, I back in the US and she back in Nueva Imperial where she lives with her two sons, Piero and Salvador, while attending university.Ximena and I returned to Santiago in February this year, and soon after I received a message from Onesima that she was still counting on my visit, had arranged for the children in her project to provide a demonstration of their work, and that her mother, Luz, wanted to provide us lodging at her home in El Peral.

I searched her out during the following reception, and in response to my many questions about her project, her life, and the Mapuche culture she invited me to visit her in Nueva Imperial and learn more. The other award winners were impressive, to be sure, but Onesima exuded a combination of excitement and commitment for her project which piqued my interest to learn more. That night Onesima, dressed in her colorful Mapuche clothing, gave a moving acceptance speech, in Spanish and her native language Mapudungun, in which she described her project to instill respect, knowledge, and love of Mapuche culture in Mapuche children throughout the Nueva Imperial area. One evening this past November, Onesima received a social innovation award in a ceremony in the auditorium of the Andres Bello University in Santiago for her project “Pichi Newen Rescuing the Mapuche Culture”. When Luz accepted the dictate of her peuma, she moved directly to her uncle’s home, bought a small piece of property on a nearby hillside, and began to establish her new home. Her summers, however, she spent back in the El Peral community near Nueva Imperial, where her uncle, Augusto Lienqueo, has a farm. Forced to move to Talca in 1973, and then Santiago five years later in search of work, the family eventually settled into urban life but suffered a mountain of cultural and socioeconomic challenges and eventually a breakup.ĭuring the period the Lienqueos lived in Santiago, Luz studied all types of dance, but developed into an accomplished Mapuche dancer, performing in official and private cultural events in hotels and restaurants in the capital city. Luz’s father, originally from Nueva Imperial, found work and a wife in Valdivia where they had six children. As you can tell by her full name, Luz is part Mapuche and part huinca(non-Mapuche). Luz’s peuma described in great detail the small piece of land she was to obtain and develop into her home on the road between Chol Chol and Nueva Imperial, in the Araucanía region of Chile about 700 kilometers south of Santiago and a bit west of Temuco. One night several years ago Luz Celia Lienqueo Castillo had a peuma…a type of dream the Mapuche believe is not just a vision but a type of premonition that must come true.