![trapelacucha drawing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Trapelacucha_drawing.svg)
Mapuche silverwork is one of the best known aspects of
Mapuche
The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who sha ...
material culture.
[Painecura 2011, p. 15.] The adornments have been subject to changes in fashion but some designs have resisted change.
History
Prior tradition of gold adornments
Mapuche people had a gold-related cultural tradition that predates the
Inca invasion.
In the 16th century, at the time of the
Spanish conquest of Chile, Mapuches are reported by various chroniclers to have used gold adornments.
[ According to Zavala and co-workers (2021) the widespread gold-related toponyms in Mapuche lands and early Spanish reports of gold objects, plus the easiness for the Spanish to find gold mines suggests that gold mining did occur in Pre-Hispanic Chile south of ]Itata River
The Itata River flows in the Ñuble Region, southern Chile.
Until the Conquest of Chile, the Itata was the natural limit between the Mapuche, located to the south, and Picunche, to the north.
See also
* Itata
*List of rivers in Chile
This list ...
, well beyond the borders of the Inca Empire.
Historian José Toribio Medina
José Toribio Medina Zavala (; October 21, 1852 - December 11, 1930) was a Chilean bibliographer, prolific writer, and historian. He is renowned for his study of colonial literature in Chile, printing in Spanish America and large bibliographies su ...
posits that most of the Mapuche gold adornments were despoiled by the Spanish during the conquest.[ Local folklore says much gold was also hidden from the Spanish and gold mines collapsed on purpose.][ Gold mining became a ]taboo
A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
among Mapuches in colonial times
The ''Colonial Times'' was a newspaper in what is now the Australian state of Tasmania. It was established as the ''Colonial Times, and Tasmanian Advertiser'' in 1825 in Hobart, Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the colon ...
, and gold mining prohibited under death penalty.[ Prior to the ]Destruction of the Seven Cities
The Destruction of the Seven Cities ( es, Destrucción de las siete ciudades) is a term used in Chilean historiography to refer to the destruction or abandonment of seven major Spanish outposts in southern Chile around 1600, caused by the Mapuc ...
serving the Spanish in gold mining had been a deadly activity that killed many Mapuches. Some 17th-century Spanish sources specifically reject the notion that Mapuche used gold adornments or valued the metal.[
]
Development of silverwork
During the latter half of the 18th century, Mapuche silversmith
A silversmith is a metalworker who crafts objects from silver. The terms ''silversmith'' and ''goldsmith'' are not exactly synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product may vary great ...
s began to produce large amounts of silver finery. The surge of silversmithing activity may be related to the 1641 parliament of Quillín and the 1726 parliament of Negrete that decreased hostilities between Spaniards and Mapuches and allowed trade to increase between colonial Chile
In Chilean historiography, Colonial Chile ( es, link=no, La colonia) is the period from 1600 to 1810, beginning with the Destruction of the Seven Cities and ending with the onset of the Chilean War of Independence. During this time, the Chilea ...
and the free Mapuches.[ In this context of increasing trade, Mapuches began in the late 18th century to accept payments in ]silver coin
Silver coins are considered the oldest mass-produced form of coinage. Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks; their silver drachmas were popular trade coins. The ancient Persians used silver coins between 612–330 ...
s for their products; usually cattle or horses.[ These coins and silver coins obtained in political negotiations served as raw material for Mapuche metalsmiths (]Mapudungun
Mapuche (, Mapuche & Spanish: , or Mapudungun; from ' 'land' and ' 'speak, speech') is an Araucanian language related to Huilliche spoken in south-central Chile and west-central Argentina by the Mapuche people (from ''mapu'' 'land' and ''che ...
: ''rüxafe'').[ By the 18th century silver had efectively filled the place gold previously had in Mapuche culture.][ Old Mapuche silver ]pendant
A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, which may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. Its name stems from the Latin word ...
s often included unmelted silver coins, a circumstance which has helped modern researchers to date the objects. The bulk of the Spanish silver coins originated from mining in Potosí
Potosí, known as Villa Imperial de Potosí in the colonial period, is the capital city and a municipality of the Department of Potosí in Bolivia. It is one of the highest cities in the world at a nominal . For centuries, it was the location o ...
in Upper Peru
Upper Peru (; ) is a name for the land that was governed by the Real Audiencia of Charcas. The name originated in Buenos Aires towards the end of the 18th century after the Audiencia of Charcas was transferred from the Viceroyalty of Peru to th ...
.[Painecura 2011, pp. 25-26.] The foreign origin of most silver (''liqen'', ''lien'', ''lighen'') explains why there is scarcity of silver-related Mapuche placenames relative to those referring to gold (''milla'').[
The great diversity in silver finery designs is indebted to the fact that designs were done to be identified with different ''reynma'' (families), ''lof mapu'' (lands) as well as specific ]lonko
A lonko or lonco (from Mapudungun ''longko'', literally "head"), is a chief of several Mapuche communities. These were often ulmen, the wealthier men in the lof. In wartime, lonkos of the various local rehue or the larger aillarehue would gather in ...
s and machis.[Painecura 2011, pp. 27-28.] Mapuche silver finery was also subject to changes in fashion
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
albeit designs associated with philosophical and spiritual concepts have not undergone major changes.[
In late 18th century and early 19th century, Mapuche silversmithing activity and artistic diversity reached it climax.][Painecura 2011, p. 30.] All important Mapuche chiefs of the 19th century are supposed to have had at least one silversmith.[ The 1869 war between Chile and independent Mapuches provoked a famine among Mapuches in the winter of 1869, with the situation being worsened by a ]smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
epidemic.[Bengoa 2000, p. 224.] This situation led some Mapuches to sell their silver adornments in the towns of La Frontera to obtain food.[
As of 1984, Mapuche scholar Carlos Aldunate noted that there were no silversmiths alive among contemporary Mapuches.][
]
Appearance
Although these adornments showed some variation in form, the principal one appears to be a set of three separate columns of flattened silver links joined to each other by square alternating links. At the top of the set of columns, and holding them together, is a flat two-headed bird figure and at the base is a flat semicircle or trapezoid that usually has a series of small disks dangling from its base. The wearer would place the object hanging from his/ her neck and down the chest.
Notes
References
*
*
External links
National Museum of the American Indian−NMAI.edu: Mapuche Silverwork
— ''in the collection of the Smithsonian NMAI.''
{{Mapuche
Silverwork
Silverwork
Silversmithing
Silver objects
Chilean art