TASTE of the SOUTH Food in the Lives of the Mapuche in Santiago
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TASTE OF THE SOUTH Food in the Lives of the Mapuche in Santiago de Chile Master’s Thesis in Folklore Studies University of Helsinki Faculty of Arts / Folklore Studies Maija Väätämöinen March 2016 This thesis was funded and academically supported by FONDECYT grant 1140500 (2014–2016) “Narrating place identity: Re-created sociocultural places by Mapuche families in the city of Santiago, Chile”, whose lead researcher is Dr. María Eugenia Merino, Catholic University of Temuco, Chile. ABSTRACT The aim of this Master’s thesis is to find out what kinds of meanings the Mapuche living in Santiago de Chile give to food and food related practices. The study focuses on the meanings articulated in the interview talk on sociocultural practices and place attachment and is grounded on the notion of language as a tool in the social construction of reality. On the semantic level I study meanings constructed in the interview talk, but I also take into account how these meanings are described as embodied practices. The study has been influenced by place, identity, indigenous, everyday life, migration and memory studies but sets its ground in folklore studies for its aim to study what ’ordinary’ people tell about their life. The study reveals how food articulates culture and life and is related to spiritual and ritualistic practices in the everyday life of the Mapuche. In addition, food is a marker of belonging and identity: it is a way to differentiate us from ’the others’ and to strengthen the meaningful bond to the South, the Araucania region, from where the Mapuche have migrated to Santiago. For the Mapuche, food has an origin. Moreover, food can be seen as a site of memory, remembered in different food dishes and artefacts or by doing or talking about food. Food constructs the past in the present and is used as a tool to move between different spatiotemporal dimensions. There is an important distinction made between living and performing the culture, between adapting the culture ’naturally’ or consciously learning it. Some Mapuche argue that being a Mapuche can only be understood as a feeling inside while others find it important to practice the culture daily. These two opposing views form a basis for a new indigenous cultural theory that can offer understanding on how to practice culture and build identity in urban context distant from the land of origin. In the end, in spite of the worry for the continuity of food related practices to the following generations, food traditions still appear vivid and are actively transmitted in the lives of the Mapuche and show their importance to both migrated and Santiago-born Mapuche. KEYWORDS: Mapuche, indigenous people, food culture, foodways, cultural practices, urbanisation, migration, transmission of traditions, Chile. TIIVISTELMÄ Tämän pro gradu -tutkielman tarkoituksena on selvittää millaisia merkityksiä Santiago de Chilessä asuvat mapuchet antavat ruualle ja ruokaan liittyville käytänteille. Tutkimus tarkastelee kieltä sosiaalisen todellisuuden rakentajana ja keskittyy haastattelupuheessa luotuihin merkityksiin, joissa kielellisen tason lisäksi huomioidaan, kuinka merkityksiä on kuvailtu kehollisina. Tutkimus on saanut vaikutteita paikka- ja identiteettitutkimuksesta, alkuperäiskansatutkimuksesta, sekä arki-, siirtolaisuus- ja muistitietotutkimuksesta, mutta kiinnittyy folkloristiikkaan, haluun tarkastella mitä ’tavalliset’ ihmiset kertovat elämästään. Tutkimus osoittaa, kuinka ruoka artikuloi kulttuuria ja elämää ja on osa arjen rituaalisia käytäntöjä. Ruuan kautta voidaan luoda kuulumisen tunnetta ja vahvistaa kulttuurista identiteettiä erottamalla ’meidät muista’ ja rakentamalla merkityksellistä suhdetta etelään, Araucanian maakuntaan, mistä mapuchet ovat muuttaneet pääkaupunkiseudulle. Mapucheille etelä on ruuan toivottu alkuperä ja ruoka on myös muistinpaikka, joka aktivoi muistoja eri ruokalajien, ruokaan liittyvien esineiden, tekemisen tai ruuasta puhumisen kautta. Ruoka liikkuu ihmisten puheessa erilaisten ajallis-tilallisten ulottuvuuksien, menneen ja nykyisyyden, Santiagon ja etelän välillä. Tutkimus luo uutta alkuperäiskansakulttuuriteoriaa tuomalla esiin kaksi erilaista tapaa suhtautua kulttuuriin: kulttuuri nähdään sekä elettynä, sisäisenä tunteena, joka omaksutaan ’luonnollisesti’, että esitettynä, jolloin sitä ylläpidetään tietoisesti ja aktiivisesti. Tämä tieto auttaa ymmärtämään tapoja harjoittaa kulttuuria ja rakentaa kulttuurista identiteettiä uudessa elinympäristössä, kaukana alkuperäisiltä asuinmailta. Huolimatta siitä, että mapuchejen keskuudessa oltiin huolestuneita kulttuurin siirtymisestä tuleville sukupolville tutkimus osoittaa, että ruokaperinteet ja kulttuurinen tietoisuus elävät yhä vahvana sekä Santiagoon muuttaneiden että siellä syntyneiden mapuchejen elämässä. AVAINSANAT: Mapuche, alkuperäiskansa, ruokakulttuuri, ruokaperinne, kaupungistuminen, siir- tolaisuus, kulttuuriperinne, Chile. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 6 2. Theoretical Framework 9 2.1 Place 10 2.2 Identity 13 2.3 Food in Everyday Life and in Memories 16 3. The Research Questions 19 4. The Research Data 19 5. Methodology 22 6. Ethical Considerations 24 7. Food in the Lives of the Mapuche 26 7.1 The Sacred in Food, Rituals and Everyday Life 28 7.1.1 Sacred Place 29 7.1.2 The Sacredness of the Everyday 32 7.1.3 The South 35 7.1.4 Protection and Care 40 7.2 Food and Belonging 44 7.3 Food as a Site of Memory 55 7.3.1 Artefacts 59 7.3.2 Doing 60 7.3.3 Talking 63 7.4 Food as Tradition: On the Continuity and Transmission of Culture to Forthcoming Generations 65 8. Conclusion: Food and the Connection to the South 72 Bibliography 74 Appendix I – References 83 Appendix II – Vocabulary 100 1. Introduction Think of food in your life. Think of what does it mean to you. In this Master’s thesis I analyse what food means to the Mapuche living in Santiago de Chile. The Mapuche are an indigenous group living in Chile and Argentina. The word Mapuche comes from Mapuche language [Mapudungun] mapu [land] and che [people]. The Mapuche are often referred to as the people of the land1 as in the world view of the Mapuche land has a profound cultural, mythical and symbolical meaning. It is the connection to the land that explains and makes visible many features related to their culture,2 knowledge, history, spirituality and memory (Waldman 2012, 57). ”A Mapuche always knows where he [or she] comes from. That’s what makes us Mapuche”, is stated in a study made by an Italian anthropologist Di Giminiani (2015, 1). The historical land for the Mapuche is situated in the south of the continent, in Chile and Argentina. However, these days many Mapuche have moved to the central Chile especially to the capital of the country, Santiago. According to the statistics (Census 2002),3 there are 183 000 Mapuche living in Santiago, which makes approximately 30 percent of all the Mapuche living in Chile (604 000). In comparison, there are approximately 200 000 Mapuche living in the Araucanía region and its capital Temuco, a number that yet makes it the most densely populated Mapuche region in the country. The phenomenon of migration is universal and historical – people move and have moved in hope for better living conditions, to find a job, to educate their children. The living environment may change from rural to urban, from familiar to unfamiliar. Often times, it is a jump to the unknown. When it comes to societal structure, and relation between people and groups, it can mean a shift from being part of majority into being part of minority. For some people migration can be a voluntary option, for some people there is no choice, but voluntary or not, people try to adapt to new surroundings, to the new place of living. In so doing, they try to find a house, a job, a place to study. They socialize, connect with people, they make a family. In other words, they try to make life meaningful and find a place to strengthen identity. They want to belong and practice their culture. Due to housing policies for immigrants in Santiago de Chile, families from different regions of the country join tiny self-constructions [campamentos] in the city outskirts of the city to wait for 1 The word land itself includes not only the metaphysical form but also the spiritual one where the world of the ancestors and spirits are included. (Sierra 2000) 2 With culture I mean mental construct that is built by individuals in sifting experience. Culture is created by people, who shape it and modify it, who try to understand the difference that comes out in between the famil- iar and the foreign, to be able to face the deficiencies and work toward improvement. (Glassie 1999, 25.) 3 There was a serious error made in the inhabitant calculations in Chile in 2012. For that reason the latest official counting goes back to the year 2002. 6 a state house. There is little where to choose from. When moving into Santiago, the Mapuche try to meet family members or people they know to find support to be able to settle in the new living environment (Maza & Marimán 2012, 139), but it is stated that they also maintain their relationship with the community where they come from to keep open the possibility of returning and keeping up the connection to the South. However, migration to Santiago is not seen only as a negative phenomenon but as a way to ’modernise’ oneself, to get to know a new way of living and to search for better possibilities in life. (ibid.) Therefore, the main reasons for the mobilization of the Mapuche are search of employment and education for children. People move from the South also because of the lack of land. Southern Chile, being inhabitet by the Mapuche before Spanish colonisation, was divided into 3,000 reservations in the intervention of the Chilean forces in 1883, which makes up approximately five percent of the originally claimed land (Bauer 2015, citing Bengoa 1985; Aylwin 2002; Pinto 2003; Correa and Mella 2009). After that, in the end of the 19th century land titles [titulos de merced] were given to over 77,000 Mapuche (of approximately 110,000) although that as well left almost one third of Mapuche without any legal title to land (Bengoa 1999, 59).