I posted some news about the mapuches earlier in this blog, but I never posted any information about them so you can get to know their culture and history. So I took the liberty to post some info on them taken from: http://www.unpo.org/.
This site is the home of the UNREPRESENTED NATIONS AND PEOPLES ORGANIZATION.
If you get interested check the site.


Mapuche

Geography

In Chile their communities are concentrated in the provinces of Arauco, Bio-Bio, Malleco, Cautin, Valdivia, Osorno and Chiloe, with many migrating to the cities. According to the census of 1992, 44.1 % of the total Mapuche population of Chile lives in Santiago; in Argentina, the Mapuche live mainly in the provinces of Neuquen, Rio Negro, Buenos Aires and Santa Cruz.

People

Population

At present they number approximately 1.5 million in Chile, and 200,000 in Argentina. The Mapuche nation is the most numerous of the indigenous people in Chile and constitutes one of the largest indigenous societies in South America.

Language

The name of Mapuche is composed of two parts: “Mapu”, which means land, and “che”, which means people. The Mapuche call their language Mapudungun. The language was first written down by missionaries, and the orthographic systems they used were adaptations from European languages, and varied from author to author.

As a result, the many written documents that exist today do not all necessarily use the same alphabet. Mapuche’s language is also called Araucano, a name given by the Spanish colonialists. However, the Mapuche people also speak Spanish. Nowadays Araucanian speakers have almost disappeared from Argentina, while in Chile Mapuche speakers, who used to speak only Mapuche, are now mostly bilingual. Mapadungun lacks substantive protection or promotion, despite the Chilean government's commitment to improve the situation and provide full access to education in Mapuche areas in southern Chile.

Culture and religion

Their socio-cultural and political relations have always been shaped and complemented by their spirituality, their religious beliefs and the strong relationship between man, land and nature. They have a deeply religious society. The Mapuches of today have managed to establish a new dimension of what is religious in a syncretism that includes the catholic religion as well as protestant evangelic movements.

The Machi, the shaman, is fundamental in the configuration of Mapuche's myths and rites. He is the mediator between the natural and supernatural world and usually has a great knowledge of traditional medicine. Mapuche perform ritual ceremonies, such as: the nguillatun, a ceremony of prayer, the machitun, healing ritual, the wentripantu or celebration of the New Year, day of the winter solstice; funeral and initiation rites.

Economy

Their main source of income comes from agriculture, predominantly grain and cattle.
However many Mapuche moved to urban centres and their activities are essentially constituted by all kinds of labors disdained commonly by the dominant society (housekeeping, construction, gastronomic, etc).
The Mapuches’ living standard is generally low. The Mapuche suffer from poor housing, malnutrition, illiteracy, alcoholism, tuberculosis and a high rate of infant mortality.

Environmental problems

Before the conquistadors arrived, the lush forests of southern Chile belonged to the Mapuche people. Today, though, tree farms stretch in all directions. Ancestral Mapuche lands have been expropriated, by tree farming companies, leading to the plantation of thousands of monoculture eucalyptus and pine trees where there were once native forests. The commercial tree plantations are processed into lumber and paper pulp, mainly for export to North America, Asia and Europe. The environmental impact of commercial tree farming has acted as a catalyst for a rise in Mapuche activism in recent years.

History

The Mapuche belong to the tribe of the Araucanians, whose ancestors moved to the region now known as Chile in South America 12,000 years ago. They are the only indigenous group that withstood the attacks of the Inca and were never conquered by them. Before the Spanish arrived in 1541, the Mapuche occupied a vast territory in the “southern cone” of the continent and the population numbered about 2 million. The Mapuche nation comprised both settled and nomadic communities, hunters, shepherds and farmers, living in small family groups which were under authority of a Lonko (chief), and formed part of bigger regional communities.

At the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, in 1540, the Mapuche occupied most of what is now Chile, from Antofagasta in the north, to the Isla Chiloe in the south. After about a century of interaction and struggle with the Spaniards, the Treaty of Quilin was signed in 1641, recognizing the independence of the Mapuche; furthermore by this treaty the Mapuche agreed to remain to the south of the Bio-Bio river, in an area of only 10 million hectares. For more than two centuries they successfully defended this area against the Spaniards and, later, the Chileans. From 1881 to 1883, the Chilean armies, which with the help and financing of England had just won the War of the Pacific against Bolivia and Peru, put down a major uprising and finally “pacified” the Mapuche. Therefore, independence of the Mapuche came to an end with the independence of Chile.

Until 1881 the Mapuche nation was completely independent, territorially and politically. They were then settled on “reducciones” or reserves, all relatively small and, in most, cases, separated one from another by areas settled by Chileans and European immigrants.
By 1979, the date of the law, which provides for the division and liquidation of the Mapuche reserves, this had been further reduced to only 350,000 hectares. In 1979, the Mapuche fell victim to an “Indigenous Peoples Law” instituted by the military regime under Pinochet, the aim of which was to destroy the traditional communities of the Mapuche. The democratically elected government of Chile brought little recognition of the rights of indigenous people.

In Chile's ninth region, on the Bio Bio River, Mapuche communities and activists have been fighting a long running battle with the largest private companies in Chile because of its project of constructing hydroelectric dams. Back in June 1997 the $600 million hydroelectric dam project was approved by the Chilean government's environmental office, but this ambitious project, which was one of six proposed in Chile by this Spanish firm, created many problems for the Mapuche people and their ancestral land and created lots of tension
In Argentina, the Mapuche are facing the threat of confiscation of 110,000 hectares of their land in Pulmari in the Alumine Region.

In 1985 the former president Raul Alfonsin announced that the Pulmari region would be returned to the Mapuche (Decree No. 1410), but this did not happen despite persistent requests by the Mapuche communities to the Argentinean authorities. It is precisely the regional government of Alumine that does not respect the above-mentioned national decree.

In 1997, the European Parliament passed the “Resolution on the Situation of Human Rights and Indigenous Minorities in Argentina”.

It concerns the protection of human rights of indigenous people and also called on the Argentine Government to amend regulations to avoid misinterpretations regarding the rights of the legitimate land owners to defend the rights and interests of Mapuche and to avoid expulsion from their constitutionally recognized lands.

Since the beginning of October 1997, the Pichi-Loncoyan and Pilin-Mapu communities of Lumaco municipality have been mobilising in defence of their land rights and the failure of the Chilean judicial system to deliver justice. Earlier this century, these communities were granted legal entitlement to an area of 3,000 hectares of their own ancestral land. Half of this area has now been confiscated by logging companies such as Arauco S.A. The loggers occupied and exploited the forests in that region.

In an effort to regain their land and protect the forest, the Mapuche tried to stop the logging operations by non-violent actions but on 14 October, a police squad from Puren violently evicted the Mapuches, injuring many of them. 37 people were arrested and jailed for 20 days before being officially charged. Several other confrontations between the Mapuche and the Chilean authorities took place there, during which a total of 36 people were arrested and detained by the Chilean authorities.

Many corporations have bought land, destroyed the once abundant forests and evicted indigenous inhabitants for sugar and genetically modified Soya plantations.
In Patagonia, the Mapuche face a similar plight. In 1997 Benetton bought Patagonian land. The Mapuche have lived in these territories for 13 000 years. Benetton now owns 900 000 hectares of Patagonia and is the largest landholder in Argentina. The multinational has since enclosed their ‘property’ with a fence. Benetton demands that the local Mapuche community solicit permission from them to fish in the river.

The Mapuche people have lost control of their territory to Argentina and Chile.
Their way of life has been eroded by governmental politics and development projects. In spite of the democratisation process in Chile, human rights violations against the Mapuche continue, as was the case during past administrations.
They daily suffer racism, repression and social exclusion, but they keep their struggle alive.

Organizations

Mapuche Inter-Regional Council (CIM) is an umbrella organisation in Temuco City, in the heart of Mapuche territory, uniting six Mapuche organisations in Chile and Argentina, as well as the Mapuche Exterior Committee. The objectives of the Mapuche Inter-Regional council are the improvement of the people'living standard, the preservation of the Mapuche culture and the restitution of ancestral Mapuche lands, as well as the exercise of the right to self-determination. Since January 1993, the Mapuche, represented by the Mapuche Inter-Regional Council, is as member of UNPO.

go to: http://www.unpo.org/member_profile.php?id=37