mapuche art and culture   Musical instruments

Kultrung: A percussion musical instrument made from a piece of a native wood. A large plate of a concave form. It is covered with a piece of goat or sheep skin.Some silver coins and some colorful stones are put inside the Kultrung.

Kaskawilla: It is a metallic rattle from european origen. It was brought by the spanish conquerors on theirs horse back. In the sick's healing ceremony or Machitun, the machi is always accompanied by it.

Wada: A percusion instrument made from gourds in which inside some dried seeds and pebbles are keeping. Normally, is accompanied by the Kultrung.

Trutuca: It is a two to four meters long wind instrument which accompanies to the machi in almost every religious or social event. It is made from a bamboo covered with a piece of horse instestine (gut) and a cow horn which is used as an amplifier.

Pifülka; A wind instrument made from a piece of wood which has only one aperture where it can de blown at. Also, there are made from wood, stones and bones.

Trompe: A metallic instrument that is considered as the love's instrument. It has a key form with a thin wedge which vibrates with the fingers and the mouth.

Kull-Kull: It is an animal's leather that makes a stridenting sound and is used for meeting callings.

Nolkin: It is an empty string about one meter and twenty centimeters long, is played by inhaling and produces a sound similar to the clarion.

Pinkulwe: It is a type of a small flute.

Mapuchean customs

In the past mapuchean male used to wear plant fibre dressings and animals leather outfits. Today, he wears a wide legged trousers tied up to his waist with a belt. The female wears the chamal or multe colourful shawl and a vivid large neck kerchief called iquilla, she borders her head with trariloncos and her chest with trapelacuchas, and she uses on her head beatiful and colourful ribbons.

Mapuchean flag
Mapuchean crafting

Mapuchean popular art is simple and has a great utility sense. Today, pottery is made at Quepe, Panguipulli, Huichahue, Collinco and Roblehuacho, all rural areas or indian reservations. The matahues or small earthen pitchers have human, bird and animal forms decorated with broken lines and symbols representing the sun, the rain and lightning.

The handicraft basket is very primitive, is normally made of the chyle plants belonging to the bamboo's family, and from the cat-tail plants, or from the sucker tree leanes. The items more commonly braided are chaihues, or cat-tail baskets or boqui, and chihuas and pilhuas, a sort of shopping bags made out of the sucker tree fibres or from its roots.

Today's mapuchean most typical technique in the loom weaving garments is the fineness of theirs style of weaving, parallel coloring patterns of rectilinear forms. They use a standing loom called huitral and for to weave the traihue, they build a bamboo four legs warping frame on the floor.

Mapuchean silver smith is one of the country's highest folclorical espressions well known all over the world. It is important to know that mapuchean people learnt metals forging from their ancestors and from the conquerors. The most popular femine ornaments are the trapelacucha, a sort of long silver ornament uses on the chest made of two or three parallel silver coins chain ending at a floral cross with oval points: the trarilonco, a silver coins chain on a band of colourful cloth used to embellish women forehead; and the chaguay, siquel and trariman.
Mapuchean folclore

The main folcloric fiesta takes place on January 20 at Lumaco rural town.

It is a ancestral ritual ceremony called The Saint Stone Fiesta. Mapuchean families start to arrive a couple days before to the fiesta's place. Women try to display theirs best typical customs, silver adornments and muticolours ribbons. Each family takes with them a fowl or bird to be sacrifice and dropping its blood on the stone, while they ask or thank for a favour to the stone, other spill on the stone a portion of wine after tasted it and hundred od candles are lit illuminating the place.

Cross made of wheat straw or from other plants are stuck on the blood remains. A great number of machis surrounded by people from theirs own reservations parade in front to the attending public getting near to the sacred stone, dancing, singing and reciting, accompanied by theirs sacred instrument, the Kultrung, pressing between her hands the sacred knife which pass over the different parts of the body of an ill person or over somebody initiated on the sacred rituals. The festivity carries on during all night amongst singings, dancing, music, prayings, rituals crying and half lightining. Mapuchean celebrate the new year on the 24 of June when a ritual of a great importance take place to ask for miracles and to thank to gods in a solemn ceremony.