The Mapuche collection: what exists, and what comes next
A frank inventory of the first collection — what is live today, what is placeholder by design, and what only community collaboration can build.
Live today: the Mapuche profile with its history, land, language and contemporary-life sections drafted from the working bibliography; a Mapudungun reference page; first lessons (greetings, numbers) using well-attested vocabulary; culture pages for merkén, trarilonko and kultrün; Wallmapu in the Atlas, drawn as soft presence without borders.
Placeholder by design: the reconstruction at the top of the Mapuche page. A photorealistic figure belongs there eventually — but only one built from documented clothing and material culture, for a stated place and period, with named sources and review. Until that exists, the space holds an honest placeholder and interactive object studies rather than an invented face.
What only collaboration can build
Native-speaker audio for every lesson. Community-reviewed pages on ceremony, knowledge and worldview — or the considered decision to leave parts unpublished. Contemporary voices in their own words, by arrangement rather than by scraping. Provenance-rich commerce, if producers want it, on their terms. The scaffolding for all of this is in place; the substance arrives with the people it belongs to.