Peoples of the Americas

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.

The game

Palin is played on a long field between two sides, each player carrying a wüño, a curved wooden stick, driving a small ball toward the opposing end. Colonial sources record both its popularity and officials' recurring attempts to curb it; the game outlasted the officials.

More than sport

A palin is an occasion as much as a match: communities meet, host and feed one another, and the play binds relationships between lof. It remains a living practice, played in communities across Wallmapu and organised today in schools, clubs and intercommunal encounters.