Peoples of the Americas
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Culture

Things, and everything they're tied to

A culture page is a knot in the net: object to people, people to place, place to process, process to present. First entries from the Mapuche collection — documented forms, no decorative inventions, imagery only when it can be real.

Food · Mapuche

Merkén

The smoked chilli of the Mapuche kitchen: cacho de cabra, sun-dried and smoked over the household fire, ground coarse with toasted coriander seed and salt.

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Silverwork · Textile · Mapuche

Trarilonko

A band worn around the head — woven wool in everyday forms; in silver, chained plates and hanging coins for festive dress.

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Silverwork · Mapuche

Chaway

Silver earrings — among the most widespread forms of Mapuche jewellery, worked from coin silver by specialist smiths.

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Textile · Mapuche

Witral

The vertical loom — and the weaving tradition that clothes Mapuche life, from the makuñ poncho to the küpam, the ükülla and the trariwe sash.

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Music · Ceremony · Mapuche

Kultrün

The shallow ceremonial kettledrum played by the machi — an instrument at the centre of Mapuche ceremonial life.

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Architecture · Mapuche

Ruka

The Mapuche house: a timber frame thatched deep with plant fibre, one great room around the fogón — the fire whose smoke cures roof, food and merkén alike.

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Practice · Sport · Mapuche

Palin

The fast field game played with curved sticks — centuries documented, still played, and always more than sport: an encounter that binds communities.

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Entries grow with the collections — textiles, silverwork, food, music and practice, each with sources and review status. Sacred or restricted knowledge is acknowledged, not published.