Rebuilding the Machil in the Pwelmapu: knowing and power

Abstract

The traditional health system of the Mapuche people called Bawehtuwün has been investigated, the intercultural characteristics that the machil had in the Pwelmapu, its development, transformation and disappearance. It seeks the reconstruction of the memory of the communities, the pikes kushe, the logko gijatufe and political leaders, in the fütal mapu, territorial identity of the eastern mountain range, called Pwelmapu. In that territory, the role of machi, the most important religious and spiritual institution that the Mapuche people have, has disappeared for 40 years. The ethnographic approach was from the perspective of a native researcher of the Mapuche people. The collection instruments were semi-structured individual interviews, the pentukun, circles of knowledge, exciting participation and for transcription we worked with sociolinguistic interpretation. The results reflect that the manifestations of machis, in health are still practiced. Children between 9 and 12 years old still practice speech, but they do not live in the rural area, but in the city and families do not speak mapuzungun, so the role is being transformed. Another result is that the spiritual authorities, have not put as a condition the speech of the mapuzungun as a cultural characteristic, but they consider it as a capacity that can be learned in the process of mapuchization, re-speaking the native language. But yes, they have prioritized the Kupan and the Tuwün as a cultural condition. Castilianization and evangelization have worn away ritual, spiritual practices and belief systems in the Mapuche people in the Pwelmapu; however, the call of machi can occur in a person who does not speak mapuzungun, although in his training process he must learn it to be legitimated socially.