Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino

Cultures > South > El Vergel

Culto y Funebria

They often buried their dead in small groups, probably based on kinship. Typically, they buried their dead inside large ceramic urns accompanied by metawe jugs. Most grave goods that may have accompanied these burials have deteriorated due to the soil conditions here, but in a few cases fragments of textiles, copper adornments and wooden artifacts have been found. Other funerary practices include burial sites encircled with stones, simple burial of bodies in prone position and bodies buried in wooden canoes (called wampo in Mapudungun). The discovery of pipes or quitras suggests that these people engaged in shamanistic religious practices that included the consumption of hallucinogenic substances in ritual contexts.