Genres of the past in Rural Mapuche Life

This article challenges the widely-held assumption that many rural Mapuche people somehow lack "historical consciousness" and that this lack is an obstacle to full participation in the "Mapuche movement." In response, I seek to demonstrate the richness and diversity of rural Mapuche engagements with the past. Utilizing Bakhtin's concepts of chronotope and genre, I suggest that different forms of addressing the past carry different assumptions of person and identity. In presenting ethnographic material on personal songs (ül), I suggest that the past is presented as a cumulative series of singular lives, rather than as a coherent group moving through time. I then turn to the meaning of the term "Mapuche" as used in personal histories (nutram), and suggest that it refers as much to a relational and productive identity, as it does to an ‘ethnic' understanding of identity.

Key words: Mapuche, Song, History, Ethnicity, Identity.