Pilmaiquén or Pilmayquen (

Mapudungun Mapuche ( , ; from 'land' and 'people', meaning 'the people of the land') or Mapudungun (from 'land' and 'speak, speech', meaning 'the speech of the land'; also spelled Mapuzugun and Mapudungu) is either a language isolate or member of the s ...

) is a riachuelo in the commune of Cañete in

Arauco Province Arauco Province () is one of three provinces of the Chilean region of Bío Bío. It spans a coastal area of just south of the mouth of the Biobío River, the traditional demarcation between the nation's major natural regions, Zona Central and ...

in the Bío Bío Region of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

that flows southwest towards the coast of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

to the northwest of the city of Cañete. Its course is short but of great volume and traverses a small valley between wooded mountainous areas where it joins the

Licauquén River Licauquén River a short river or ''riachuelo'' south of Lebu and west of Cañete. It comes from the eastern wooded heights of the Arauco Province to the coast of the Pacific Ocean, it is joined in its upper reaches by a tributary riachuelo named ...

. This valley was a

Moluche The Moluche ("people from where the sun sets" or "people from the west") or Nguluche are an Indigenous people of Chile. Their language was a dialect of Mapudungun, a Mapuche language. At the beginning of the Conquest of Chile by the Spanish Empi ...

rehue A rehue (Mapudungun spelling rewe) or kemukemu is a type of Column, pillar-like sacred altar used by the Mapuche of Chile and Argentina in many of their ceremonies. Altar/Axis mundi The ''rehue'' is a carved tree trunk set in the ground, s ...

of the

Tucapel Tucapel is a town and commune in the Bío Bío Province, Bío Bío Region, Chile. It was once a region of Araucanía named for the Tucapel River. The name of the region derived from the rehue and aillarehue of the Moluche people of the ar ...

aillarehue Aillarehue or Ayllarehue (from the Mapudungun: ayllarewe/ayjarewe: "nine rehues"); a confederation of rehues or family-based units (lof) that dominated a region or province. It was the old administrative and territorial division of the Mapuche, H ...

and the homeland of the

Toqui Toqui (or Toki) (Mapudungun for ''axe'' or ''axe-bearer'') is a title conferred by the Mapuche (an indigenous Chilean and Argentines, Argentinian people) on those chosen as leaders during times of war. The toqui is chosen in an assembly or parl ...

Caupolicán Caupolicán (meaning ‘polished flint’ (queupu) or ‘blue quartz stone’ (Kallfulikan) in Mapudungun) was a ''toqui'' or war leader of the Mapuche people, who led the resistance of his people against the Spanish Conquistadors who invaded the ...

who commanded the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

in the first revolt against domination by the

Spanish Empire The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy (political entity), Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered ...

Sources

Francisco Solano Asta-Buruaga y Cienfuegos, Diccionario geográfico de la República de Chile, SEGUNDA EDICIÓN CORREGIDA Y AUMENTADA, NUEVA YORK, D. APPLETON Y COMPAÑÍA. 1899.
p. 556 * Ricardo E. Latcham
''La organización social y las creencias religiosas de los antiguos araucanos'', Santiago de Chile, Impr. Cervantes, 1924.

External links

Rivers of Biobío Region Rivers of Chile Mapuche language {{Chile-river-stub