Mapuche

Across south-central Chile and the south-west of Argentina live the Mapuche, a people joined not by a single government but by a shared language, Mapudungun, and common religious, social and economic ways. Spanish colonists called them Araucanians, a name some now find offensive. They resisted conquest for more than three centuries, kept their independence south of the Biobío River until the 1880s, and today form the great majority of Indigenous people in Chile, with a smaller community in Argentina.

Archaeological finds place a recognisable Mapuche culture in the region by 600 to 500 BC. When Spaniards arrived, the Picunche lived in the valleys between the Choapa and Itata rivers, other Mapuche between the Itata and the Toltén, and the Huilliche and Cunco further south as far as Chiloé. Armies of the Inca Empire are reported to have fought Mapuche near the Maule River, but most scholars place the Inca frontier around Santiago or the Maipo, so the bulk of the Mapuche never came under Inca rule. The historian José Bengoa estimated the population between the Itata and Reloncaví Sound in the mid-sixteenth century at 705,000 to 900,000.

Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago in 1541, and between 1550 and 1553 the Spanish built Concepción, Valdivia, Imperial, Villarrica and Angol in Mapuche country. In 1553 the Mapuche chose Caupolicán as war leader, with Lautaro, who had served as an auxiliary with Spanish cavalry, as his deputy; Lautaro's forces destroyed Valdivia and his army at Tucapel. Warfare, epidemics and deaths in Spanish-owned gold mines cut Mapuche numbers sharply. In 1598 warriors under Pelantaro surprised Governor Martín García Óñez de Loyola at Curalaba, and the general rising that followed destroyed or emptied every Spanish town south of the Biobío, while only Concepción and Chillán withstood the sieges and raids. That river remained the frontier of the Spanish Empire for the rest of colonial rule, in a sporadic conflict lasting nearly 350 years.

Over a long period, estimated at roughly 1550 to 1850, Mapuche groups crossed the Andes into the pampas and northern Patagonia, a region they call Puelmapu. Neighbouring peoples, among them the Tehuelche, took up the Mapuche language and much of their culture, a process known as Araucanisation. Trade with the colonies grew after the parliament of Negrete in 1726 eased hostilities, and Mapuche smiths melted Spanish silver coins into jewellery whose craft peaked in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The traditional economy rested on farming, and extended families lived under a lonko, or chief. In war, groups combined and elected a toki, an "axe-bearer", to lead them. Women spun and wove, and textiles were valued both at home and in trade; excavated fabrics from southern Chile and Neuquén date to 1300–1350. Religious life centres on a creator, Ngenechen, on spirits of nature and ancestors, and on the machi, usually a woman, who heals, interprets dreams and leads ceremonies. The largest communal rite is the Ngillatun, and We Tripantu marks the new year.

Both republics expanded rapidly in the nineteenth century. Between 1861 and 1879 they annexed several Mapuche territories, and from 1881 they resumed the advance; Chile completed its occupation of Araucanía in 1884 with the surrender of the last communities, while Argentina conquered Puelmapu. Many Mapuche were displaced, and laws of 1931 and 1979 dividing community land fragmented holdings further. Migration to Santiago and Buenos Aires grew from the 1920s, and by 1961 perhaps a quarter of Mapuche lived outside their communities.

Chile counted about 1.6 million Mapuche in 2024 and Argentina about 146,000 in 2022. Linguists estimate some 200,000 fluent Mapudungun speakers in Chile, and the language is now taught in rural schools in several southern regions. Land and autonomy remain contested. Since the 1990s some organisations have pressed for the recovery of ancestral land, and armed groups have attacked forestry companies and private property, prompting prosecutions under anti-terrorism law; in 2022 Chile's Chamber of Deputies declared four such groups terrorist organisations.

Our 1492 map labels Mapuche lands "Wallmapu (Mapuche)", using a Mapudungun term that came into wide use in the 1990s; the approximate outline runs from the Pacific across the Andes into the pampas. It borders the Tehuelche (Aónikenk) to the south and the Diaguita and Huarpe to the north.