Ruka

The ruka is a single generous room: a structural timber frame sheathed and thatched with reeds and grasses, raised by communal work. At its heart burns the fogón, the open hearth, the household's kitchen, heater and gathering place. Smoke rising through the thatch seals and preserves the roof, and cures whatever hangs in it: strings of chillies becoming merkén, stores laid up against winter. The doorway is commonly described as opening to the east, toward the rising sun.

Rukas are still raised, for households, and prominently as community, ceremonial and teaching spaces, including in the cities, where a ruka can anchor a Mapuche cultural centre. Building one remains what it always was: collective work that makes a community visible to itself.