From küme mollfüñche to “half way civilized”: ethnic leadership and Mapuche intellectuals in the borderland Araucanía (1883-1930)

Abstract

Despite of the forced incorporation of their territory to the Chilean and Argentinean states, the Mapuche people went around and managed to maintain or resignificate sociocultural elements of their own and original. Since 1910, the customary leaderships reoriented themselves towards ethnical organizations that, representing a new mode of power, were occupied by educated scholars raised in formal Chilean schools, by ways of a trick designed by Chilean military chiefs. The educational background of those leaders allowed them to gain legitimacy both within their own Mapuche society as well as within different State representatives. Some of these leaders, such as Manuel Mañkelef, produced and published bilingual documents, both in spanish and mapudungun, which allowed them to establish contacts and enjoy certain privileges, as well as to generate conflicts with Chilean scholars, becoming thus into a prelude to the current challenges of what is known as the Mapuche “intellectuality”.