Mapuche

The Mapuche are Indigenous peoples from south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The name covers many groups that share a common social, religious, and economic way of life, as well as the Mapudungun language. Their original lands stretched from the Choapa Valley to the Chiloé Archipelago, and later expanded east into the Argentine pampa and Patagonia. Today, Mapuche make up about 79.8% of Chile’s Indigenous population and approximately 9.9% of the country’s total population. Most are concentrated in the Araucanía region, though many have moved from rural areas to cities like Santiago and Buenos Aires for work. Roughly 80–85% of all Mapuche live in Chile, with the remainder in Argentina.

Their traditional economy relies on agriculture, and their social structure is built around extended families led by a lonko, or chief. During wartime, larger groups would form and elect a toki—meaning “axe” or “axe-bearer”—to lead them. Mapuche material culture is known for textiles and silverwork.

When the Spanish arrived, different Mapuche groups lived in distinct areas: the Picunche between the Choapa and Itata valleys, the Moluche (or Nguluche) between the Itata and Toltén rivers, and the Huilliche and Cunco further south to the Chiloé Archipelago. In the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s, Mapuche groups moved east into the Andes and pampas, conquering, mixing with, and forming ties with the Poya and Pehuenche. Around the same time, Pampa groups like the Puelche, Ranquel, and northern Aonikenk came into contact with the Mapuche. The Tehuelche adopted the Mapuche language and some cultural practices in a process called Araucanization, which brought Patagonia under Mapuche influence.

In Spanish-ruled areas, especially among the Picunche, Mapuche mixed with colonists to form a mestizo population that lost its Indigenous identity. But Mapuche society in Araucanía and Patagonia stayed independent until the late 1800s, when Chile took over Araucanía and Argentina conquered Puelmapu. Since then, the Mapuche have become subjects, then nationals and citizens of those countries. Today, many Mapuche and Chilean communities are involved in the so-called Mapuche conflict over land and Indigenous rights in both Argentina and Chile.

The term “Araucanian” was used by Spanish colonizers and is now seen as pejorative by some.