Redalyc.REFLECTIONS on ARAUCANIAN/MAPUCHE RESILIENCE, INDEPENDENCE, and ETHNOMORPHOSIS in COLONIAL (AND PRESENT-DAY) CHILE
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Chungara, Revista de Antropología Chilena ISSN: 0716-1182 [email protected] Universidad de Tarapacá Chile Dillehay, Tom D. REFLECTIONS ON ARAUCANIAN/MAPUCHE RESILIENCE, INDEPENDENCE, AND ETHNOMORPHOSIS IN COLONIAL (AND PRESENT-DAY) CHILE Chungara, Revista de Antropología Chilena, vol. 48, núm. 4, 2016, pp. 691-702 Universidad de Tarapacá Arica, Chile Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=32649574013 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Volumen 48, Nº 4, 2016. Páginas 691-702 Chungara, Revista de Antropología Chilena REFLECTIONS ON ARAUCANIAN/MAPUCHE RESILIENCE, INDEPENDENCE, AND ETHNOMORPHOSIS IN COLONIAL (AND PRESENT-DAY) CHILE Tom D. Dillehay This essay addresses an anthropological and other resources for the Crown and as another indio historical understanding of the concepts and practices group in need of religious conversion and political of an indigenous sovereignty, specifically the control (e.g., Bengoa 1999, 2003; Zavala 2008). Araucanian polity, from the early Spanish contact Such encounters are interesting because they offer period to briefly the present. The Araucanians or for consideration moments of what we might call Mapuche, as they are known today, are located in ontological rupture. That is, simply the clash and the south-central Andean region of Chile. Although consequence of different worldviews between two the primary focus is on the middle 16th to middle societies in culture contact. 17th centuries during the Arauco War (~AD 1551 The 16th century Spanish kingdoms (empire) to 1641), the Mapuche successfully resisted constituted one of the first modern states in the the Spanish conquest for more than 250 years world. The empire fits within the definition of an by forming a confederated proto-state or polity early Western sovereignty (see discussion below). comprised of partner domains (i.e., Catiray, Arauco, During this period, Spain had become accustomed Tucapel, Puren) and different ethnic groups. The to the acquisition of overseas lands by conquest and Spanish called this polity the “Estado Indomito” to disregarding the will of the conquered original (“unconquered state”; see Ercilla y Zúñiga [1569] inhabitants of the land. They treated the conquered 1982). In 1641, the Spanish Crown recognized the as legally irrelevant–as Aristotelian “natural slaves” polity as a sovereign political order. The Chilean and as “savages” to be converted by joint action historian Alberto Medina interprets the meaning of of the military and the church (U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/ the term estado as it was used in the 16th century. Sub.2/1993/29 1996). The word “estado” in Ercilla [y Zuñiga] and The Araucanian polity does not necessarily meet the 16th chronicles has a precise meaning related to the definition of an early modern sovereignty. They the general idea that the term had at that time: the represented an evolving southern Andean polity, territory ruled by a prince, monarch or sovereign, one that occasionally engaged in warfare with by a chief with subjects, by a lord of vassals or neighboring ethnic groups. This polity developed serfs… (A. Medina 1978:144). more formally during the Arauco War to meet It is important that royal opinion in Spain during the new demands and needs of an ethnic society this period recognized another imperial sovereign, an undergoing intense pressure from Spanish agents. indigenous one in the Americas, despite the fact that The Araucanians were (and the Mapuche still are) the Spaniards saw the “indios” as pagan, barbarian, a patrilineal, patrilocal, and bilateral society that and idolatrous. In fact, the Araucanians constitute recognized its kin on both the mother and father’s the only indigenous ethnic group in the Americas sides. In the past, the Araucanians resided in dispersed that concluded a formal treaty and established communities. In the anthropological literature, they political boundary with the Spanish Crown. Spanish are best known as having had a mixed economy of conquistadores, clergy and soldiers and Araucanian piñon collectors in the Andes and fisherfolk, hunters, leaders, shamans and warriors represented the same gatherers, and agriculturalists in the central valley kind of entity: namely the sovereignty of a pre-modern and along the Pacific coast (Dillehay 2007, 2014). state or polity. In the midst of culture contact, the Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, their past political Araucanians and the Spanish disagreed about the organization was characterized by small to large nature of what was happening with respect to their cacicazgos or chiefdoms, except in times of war individual roles in the prolonged conflict between against the Spanish and later the Chileans when them. The Araucanians saw the Spaniards as outsiders more formal, semi-centralized polities headed by and invaders; the Spaniards saw the Araucanians guen-toqui war leaders were formed to defend their as an expendable labor force to extract gold and lands. It was not until the end of the 19th century that http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0717-73562016000400013. 692 Tom D. Dillehay the Mapuche were finally defeated by the Chilean 1887 [1606]). Lastly, I briefly discuss the political army and confined to reducciones. and ethnic struggles of the Mapuche in Chile today. For the 16th to 17th century Araucanians, The last Chilean census placed the number of the transition from initial contact to widespread Mapuche at approximately eight hundred thousand organized resistance was marked by local to one million (INE 2010), with approximately half centralization of political power at the lof (local living on scattered reducciones (c.f., Crow 2013; patrilineal community) and regua (multi-patrilineal Faron 1962;). About thirty thousand more live in communities) levels but regional non-centralization the Andean mountains to the east in Argentina, at the ayllaregua (multi-regua at the regional making them the largest indigenous group in the scale) and butanmapu (multi-ayllaregua at the southern cone of South America. Although the rural interregional scale) levels (Zavala 2011). I say Mapuche today are different from their colonial non-centralization because centralized political period ancestors, many are still agriculturalists power among the Araucanians at the broader and pastoralists and they still perform traditional territorial level and at a specific polity-capital or public ceremonies where political and social issues -center of government never existed, although they are resolved. had an effective system of self-governance at all levels and designated regions of primary military Relevance of Indigenous Sovereignty operation. Political power, authority and leadership within the warring Araucanian society were derived At stake in this type of discussion is how we primarily from resistance and resilience and were reconstruct pre-modern and indigenous figures linked to an assertion of absolute defense of the like the Araucanian sovereignty and their right of homeland, with the legitimacy of rule based on self-determination, how these sovereignties were patriarchy, ancestor worship, religion and large- governed, and what sorts of sovereignties are implied scale public ceremony. In order to understand this when those accounts intersect with today’s global polity as an indigenous “sovereign state” during the debates. Sixteenth-century European colonialism 16th and 17th centuries and to grasp the meaning created a world in which the kinds of beings (e.g., of the Mapuche’s current demands for political pagans, barbarians, and idolaters) perceived in ethnic autonomy and self-determination in Chile today groups like the Araucanians are obviously no longer (c.f., Comisión de Comunicaciones 2013; Figueroa sustainable in today’s modern setting. Nonetheless, 2015; Millaleo 2011; Marriman 2013), we need many indigenous and impoverished peoples in the to consider a broader definition of sovereignty. world are still seen as backward, undeveloped, After a brief review of the concept of sovereignty, and unworthy or incapable of self-rule and self- I consider the indigenous political structure, determination; they often are viewed as an obstacle sovereignty, and self-determination of the Araucanian and nuisance to global development. In many ways, Estado. In an attempt to broaden our consideration our present world and attitude towards indigenous of sovereignty, I examine the concept from the people are still an extension and continuation of perspective of social and cultural variables that the 16th century ones. extend beyond modern notions of an independent In the modern study of indigenous peoples, authority over a geographic area (e.g., territory or a major issue concerns ethnic origins and initial nation state) and of the ability of the modern nation- cultural development. Interest in explaining the state to guarantee the best interests of its own citizens original territory and self-determination of these (Bateman 2011; Herr 2014). Identifying these issues peoples partially relates to differentiating them is fairly straightforward in the early Spanish written through distinct historical and cultural processes records. Although sparse, these records provide and to a close examination of their contemporary sufficient detail on the inter-societal relationships ethnic and legal