A rehue (Mapudungun spelling rewe) or kemukemu is a type of pillar-like sacred altar used by the Mapuche of Chile and Argentina in many of their ceremonies.
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A rehue (Mapudungun spelling rewe) or kemukemu is a type of pillar-like sacred altar used by the Mapuche of Chile and Argentina in many of their ceremonies.
The rehue is a carved tree trunk set in the ground, surrounded by a hedge of colihue (a Chilean native bamboo) and adorned with white, blue or yellow flags and branches of coihue, maitén, lengas and other trees native to the Mapuche homeland. In form it recalls both a ladder and the human spine, having a series of steps (sometimes a mystical seven in number) cut into it, rising up from the earth toward a summit sometimes bearing a carving of a human face. It is a Mapuche representation of the axis mundi [1] or shamanic world tree symbolising connection with the various levels of the cosmos and utilised as such by the machi (Mapuche shamans). The rehue is a symbol of great importance that is used in important celebrations or ceremonies like the Machitún, Guillatún, We Tripantu (Mapuche New Year) and others.
Each machi has a rehue outside her/his house which she/he climbs in the course of certain ceremonies. This is believed to contain power transmitted to it by Ngenechen , (the supreme being in Mapuche religion) and the machi's attendant pillan (supernatural beings bearing some similarity to the familiar spirits of Early Modern European witchcraft). [2]
Called "rehue" or "regua" in colonial chronicles, the word referred to the grouping of various Mapuche families (lof or lov) who occupied the same locality and shared the same rehue altar. Nine of these rehue would form an Aillarehue (nine altars), a small confederation that would gather for war or other common purposes and formed a region or province. [3]
Gualichu, or gualicho, in Mapuche mythology and mainly in the Tehuelche culture, was an evil spirit or demon, comparable but not similar to the Devil.
The Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. Originally from the forests of the southern Andes, Mapuche people lived in the woods as "horticulturalists”. Mapuche populations shifted towards Argentina and Chile in the sixteenth century. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who shared a common social, religious, and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage as Mapudungun speakers. Their homelands once extended from Aconcagua Valley to Chiloé Archipelago and later spread eastward to Puelmapu, a land comprising part of the Argentine pampa and Patagonia. Today the collective group makes up over 80% of the indigenous peoples in Chile, and about 9% of the total Chilean population. The Mapuche are concentrated in the Araucanía region. Many have migrated from rural areas to the cities of Santiago and Buenos Aires for economic opportunities.
In astronomy, axis mundi is the Latin term for the axis of Earth between the celestial poles.
Kalku or Calcu, in Mapuche mythology, is a sorcerer or witch who works with black magic and negative powers or forces. The essentially benevolent shamans are more often referred to as machi, to avoid confusion with the malevolent kalku. Its origins are in Mapuche tradition.
A machi is a traditional healer and religious leader in the Mapuche culture of Chile and Argentina. Machis play significant roles in Mapuche religion. In contemporary Mapuche culture, women are more commonly machis than men, but it is not a rule. Male machi are known as Machi Weye.
Desfontainia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Columelliaceae, though it was placed formerly in Loganiaceae, Potaliaceae, or a family of its own, Desfontainiaceae.
The mythology and religion of the indigenous Mapuche people of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina is an extensive and ancient belief system, a series of unique legends and myths are common to the various groups that make up the Mapuche people. These myths tell of the creation of the world and the various deities and spirits that reside in it.
The wekufe, also known as huecufe, wekufü, watuku, huecufu, huecubo, huecubu, huecuvu, huecuve, huecovoe, giiecubu, güecubo, güecugu, uecuvu, güecufu; is an important type of harmful spirit or demon in Mapuche mythology. The word wekufe comes from the Mapudungun word wekufü meaning "demon, outside being".
Latua pubiflora(Griseb.) Baillon, is the single species of the monotypic genus LatuaPhil., endemic to the coastal mountains of southern Chile. A shrub or small tree to 10 m in height, bearing attractive, magenta-to-red, hummingbird-pollinated flowers, it is extremely poisonous – hallucinogenic (deliriant) in smaller doses – due to tropane alkaloid content and is used by Chilean machi (shamans) of the Mapuche–Huilliche people in traditional medicine, as a poison and to enter trance states. Its elegant flowers and yellow tomato-like fruit are attractive enough to merit its cultivation as an ornamental.
Lof or caví ; formed the basic social organization of the Mapuche, Mapuche-Huilliche and the extinct Picunche peoples, consisting of a familial clan or lineage that recognizes the authority of a lonco (cacique). The lof or caví is formed by diverse families that share the same territory and who are considered mutually related, descended from a common ancestor. Several lof form a rehue, and nine rehue formed the aillarehue. These formed one of the 3 or 5 great territorial confederations of the Mapuches, the Butalmapu.
Aillarehue or Ayllarehue ; 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, Huilliche and the extinct Picunche people. Aillarehue acted as a unit only on special festive, religious, political and especial military occasions. Several aillarehues formed the Butalmapu, the largest military and political organization of the Mapuche.
Gender systems are the social structures that establish the number of genders and their associated gender roles in every society. A gender role is "everything that a person says and does to indicate to others or to the self the degree that one is either male, female, or androgynous. This includes but is not limited to sexual and erotic arousal and response." Gender identity is one's own personal experience with gender role and the persistence of one's individuality as male, female, or androgynous, especially in self-awareness and behavior. A gender binary is one example of a gender system.
Mapuche flag is each of the flags used as an emblem and symbol of the Mapuche Nation and the Mapuche communities and organizations in Chile and Argentina. There are several different flags representing the Mapuche communities and territories.
The cultrun is a percussion instrument used by the Mapuche in Chile.
Mapuche medicine is the system of medical treatment historically used by the Mapuche people of southern Chile. It is essentially magical-religious in nature, believing disease to be caused by supernatural factors such as spells and curable by treatments based on rituals, thermal waters and herbs. Knowledge of medicinal herbs is one of the best-known elements of Mapuche medicine and is still used today.
Kev Dab Kev Qhuas is the common ethnic religion of the Miao people, best translated as the "practice of spirituality". The religion is also called Hmongism by a Hmong American church established in 2012 to organize it among Hmong people in the United States.
Ana Mariella Bacigalupo is a Peruvian anthropologist. She is a full professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and has previously taught throughout the USA and in Chile. Her research primarily focuses on the shamans or machis of the Mapuche community of Chile, and the ways shamanic practices and beliefs are affected by and influence communal experiences of state power, mythical history, ethics, gender, justice, and identity.
The Eight Pillars also known as Eight Pillars of the Sky are a concept from Chinese mythology. Located in the eight cardinal directions, they are a group of eight mountains or pillars which have been thought to hold up the sky. They are symbolically important as types of axis mundi and cosmology. Their functions in mythology ranged from pillars which functioned to hold apart the Earth and the Sky, as ladders allowing travel between the two, and as the location of various paradises or wonderland with associated magical people, plants, and animals. The Eight Pillars are a central aspect to Chinese mythology, and also have been used extensively in poetic allusion. Some variations exist, such as only having four pillars.
Francisca Linconao Huircapán, also known as Machi Linconao, is a machi and human rights activist in Chile. She became the first Indigenous rights defender in Chile to successfully invoke the 1989 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention when she sued to stop a company from logging a forest adjacent to her community. In 2021, she was elected as a representative of the Mapuche people to the Chilean Constitutional Convention election.
Kelumapusaura is a genus of saurolophine hadrosaur from the Late Cretaceous Allen Formation in what is now Patagonia in Argentina. The type and only species is K. machi, known from a bonebed of various individuals.
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