Peoples of the Americas

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.