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CHILE:
Mapuche Culture an Ingredient
in Health and Cuisine
Daniela Estrada*
SANTIAGO, (Tierramérica) -
Medicines and foods of the
Mapuches, Chile's largest
indigenous group, are finding a
place in the market and on
dinner tables. Pharmacies and
restaurants are turning into a
new source of income for the
Mapuche people -- and a window
into their culture.
Marta, 81, uses Pelu, a
medication for her otherwise
painful arthritis. María Isabel,
60, swears by Uñoperken,
prescribed for irritable colon.
Erica, 45, has been diagnosed
with uterine myoma, and she
doesn't hesitate to take Kintral.
For the past month, these three
Chilean women have been
complementing their ''western
medicine'' treatments with
Mapuche products, made using 47
native plants harvested in the
Araucanía region, some 700 km
south of the capital and where
the Mapuche population is
concentrated.
They are clients of Makewelawen,
the country's first Mapuche
pharmacy, inaugurated two years
ago in the Araucanía capital,
Temuco. There are now four shops
in Chile, with two in Santiago
and one in Concepción.
The women do not skimp on their
praise for the positive effects
of the 45 drops of medicine they
take daily. The medicinal plant
derivatives, diluted in water
and alcohol, are sold in 40
millilitre bottles, with prices
ranging from four to five
dollars.
''We hold all of the necessary
permits required by the Ministry
of Health,'' Cecilia Ramírez,
the chief pharmacist at one of
the Santiago shops, told
Tierramérica. Furthermore, the
paperwork is being processed for
patenting the medicines, which
are only counterindicated for
women who are pregnant or
lactating.
This ''complementary traditional
medicine'', as Ramírez defines
it, can be used for treating
more than 50 pathologies, and
has become a veritable
phenomenon among Chileans and
even foreigners, she says.
In Temuco, a hospital run by a
Mapuche community complements
Western medical practice with
indigenous knowledge. The Health
Ministry has had a hand in
promoting the initiative for the
past decade.
In the Mapuche cosmovision,
''diseases'' per se do not
exist. Physical and spiritual
pain are the product of
imbalances between the body and
soul, according to traditional
beliefs. This means that when a
person is not in harmony, he or
she is more likely to receive an
''ill'', which should be treated
by a 'machi', or healer.
The success of the Mapuche
culture's inroads into medicine
in Chile has expanded to
gastronomy.
The first restaurant
specialising in Mapuche dishes,
Kokaví, opened its doors in
Temuco a few weeks ago. Tasty
ingredients include quinoa (a
cereal rich in protein and
cholesterol-free), 'merkén' (a
powder made from a type of
pepper) and coriander.
Mapuche cooking also focuses
heavily on beef, pork, poultry,
mutton and even horse, as well
as wheat and corn, pine nuts
native to Araucanía, potatoes,
beans and a wide variety of
vegetables.
Even before the inauguration of
Kokaví, the traditional dishes
had achieved some notoriety as
they were included on the menus
of some prestigious Chilean
hotels and restaurants.
''People want to return to
ancestral ways because they are
tired of the health problems
associated with junk food,''
Eliana Queupumil said in a
Tierramérica interview. She is
one of the founders of Ad Malen,
a group of Mapuche families in
Santiago that prepare banquets
centred on their traditional
diet.
''Mapuche food is more natural
because it is made from organic
products with high nutritional
value,'' like 'multrun' or 'catuto'
(soft wheat crackers), 'digüeñes'
(edible mushrooms that grow on
oak trees), and 'muday', a
typical beverage, said Queupumil.
In this new ''niche'' market of
Mapuche culture, there is
already a concentration of
property.
Rosalino Moreno Catrilaf owns
the Makewelawen pharmacy, Kokaví
restaurant and Mapuche Kimün, a
Mapuche-language newspaper that
is distributed in Santiago and
southern Chile.
''I think that in a globalised
world like ours, developing a
business is the only way to
maintain our relevance,
cultivating our conception of
the world and disseminating our
culture without the prejudices
imposed by Westerners,''
Catrilaf told the newspaper
Ultimas Noticias, which profiled
him as the founder of Chile's
first Mapuche consortium.
The businessman says he dreams
of a university that teaches its
classes in the Mapuche language,
known as Mapudungun, and a
holistic health centre that
treats patients using
exclusively Mapuche techniques.
The new Mapuche businesses
represent the creation of a new
source of employment for this
indigenous group, most of which
continues to struggle in
poverty.
The approximately 600,000
Mapuches constitute 87 percent
of Chile's indigenous
population, and four percent of
the total population of 15
million.
''I'm pleased with the boom our
products are seeing, but I think
it has taken a long time to
discover them,'' Francisco
Painepán, head of the Mapuche
Business Association, told
Tierramérica.
Painepán, owner of the Lautaro
hardware store, noted that the
concept of development among his
people is different from the
Western definition. ''We work to
live, we don't live to work.''
''Our economic progress runs in
direct relation with the
preservation of our identity,''
a Mapuche never sacrifices
family or personal life to
increase wealth, he said.
(* Daniela Estrada is a
Tierramérica contributor.
Originally published Feb. 19 by
Latin American newspapers that
are part of the Tierramérica
network. Tierramérica is a
specialised news service
produced by IPS with the backing
of the United Nations
Development Programme and the
United Nations Environment
Programme.)
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