…The community provides the organizational structure of Atacameño society and gives form to the social, economic and religious relations that govern a given territory owned communally by a number…
Social Organization
…Traditional Quechua communities are organized into groups based on extended family or friendship ties, and their members live in both urban and rural settings. The community comes together for…
Organización Social
…a strategic role in Mapuche society, while colonial authorities attempted unsuccessfully to bolster the role of the lonkos, local community chiefs. After the Mapuche were defeated in 1881, a protectorate…
Beliefs and funerary practices
…minerals, as well as health, protection and prosperity for the community. The Quechua also make “payments” to the Pachamama, Mother Earth, asking her for abundant harvests. The Quechua ceremonial calendar…
History
…their (collective) owner-residents have been able to demonstrate their historic claim to those ancestral mountain territories. The indigenous community of Taucán de Chalinga, for its part, has confirmed its claim…
Toasting, Inka Style
…in the community as a permanent reminder of the community’s new inalterable relation of power with the Inka State. The kero cups embedded in the mud walls of the monumental…
Social Organization
…Traditional Diaguita society tended to be was organized around family and extended family ties. But the modern Diaguita indigenous community has only recently emerged, under the auspices of Indigenous…
Atacameña
…and percussion instruments and laquita pipes). Even so, it is difficult to speak in general terms about Atacameño music, as each community developed its own musical tradition and instruments and…
The condor and the shepherdess
…thinking of her family and her community far away, she wept because none of them could help her. The condor tried to be kind, and to care for her as…
Beliefs and funeral rites
…community and the family level in the Atacameño culture. In the former case, the most important celebration—and a clear case of a syncretic Andean-Christian belief system—is the patron saint’s day….
Economy
…also weakens the social structures set up to control and manage resources, that are the basis of power and authority in the community. On the other hand, livestock herding is…
Beliefs and funeral rites
…were practiced in an irregular, more personal manner. Yekamus or shamans were very powerful in Yaghan society. They were respected and feared but not trusted, and the community had no…
Location and Environment
…3600 m above sea level. Between 3600 and 3850 m, the flora is herbaceous and bushy, a vegetation community known as tolar, while higher up it consists of grasses and…
Economy
…Quechua community economies vary by geographic zone. The Quechuas of Ollagüe and San Pedro primarily raise livestock and practice limited agriculture, as well as sometimes gathering wild plants and…
Flutes and “Chinos”
…groups that perform these dances are guilds of flute-playing dancers who express their faith through the music and dances they perform at community rituals that fuse indigenous pre-Hispanic beliefs with…
Economy
…The Inka’s main interest in Chile was its mineral wealth, and they extracted those resources through their labor tribute system (mita), in which community members were obliged to serve…
Pre-hispanic music of Chile
…from the Tiwanaku-influenced period in Northern Chile, from around 400 to 900 A.D. The development of community-based musical traditions, especially orchestras, in the North (around Arica), brought the siku(pan pipes)…
The Sacrificer
…potatoes, the Sacrificer removed certain parts of the human body and planted them in the earth to release their power to renew not only crops but the community itself….
Beliefs and Funerary Practices
…valleys that is a guardian spirit of animals and appears as a large guanaco that lives in the mountains. The practices and oral tradition of the Diaguita community of Chalinga,…
Art
…healers in the Choapa Valley. Among their various crafts, other members of Chalinga community have recovered ancient ceramic techniques and designs from their pre-Hispanic ancestors, and now benefit economically from…
Indigenous Stories
…Some of them are common to large, geographical areas but are told with local differences, based on the experiences and environments of each community. The following tales belong to the…
Economy
…acquired estates in the Diaguita territorial zone. The Diaguita community of Taucán de Chalinga, for its part, subsists by farming small parcels of land in the valley and (in the…
Environment and Geography
…where sparse grasses are the only vegetation. The Diaguita community of Chalinga is located in the valley of the same name in the middle reaches of the Choapa River, near…
Settlement Pattern
…of 446,367.4 hectares. Although this vast territory was recognized in 2014, the Chilean State has officially ceded just 3.2% of that territory (14,384.19 hectares) to the Quechua community of Ollagüe….