…que allí acontecía. La devastación, las tareas de reconstrucción e imágenes de un Nguillatún que realiza una comunidad Mapuche para aplacar la furia de la naturaleza en las proximidades del…
Art
…Traditional ceramic and textile arts are still practiced in some Quechua communities. Pottery is manufactured primarily for domestic use and includes large urns for storing food and drink, and…
Pre-hispanic music of Chile
…a great deal. Music has always been an important part of ceremonial life (without music, rituals would virtually not exist), and the most interesting evidence of this comes to us…
Economy
The Chinchorro were fishers, hunters, and gatherers, expert at taking advantage of the marine resources available and manufacturing an assemblage of special tools for this purpose. Notable among…
Arte
These people were the first to produce ceramics in the region. They crafted thin-walled vessels in simple forms, with dark surfaces that were sometimes polished. Some pieces featured…
Settlement pattern
The Alto Ramirez people inhabited permanent settlements, small villages with buildings that were more solid than in previous periods. These were able to accommodate a larger number of…
Social organization
…The presence of monuments, in the form of many large burial mounds, tells us something of the social life of the Alto Ramírez people. Building these complex structures would…
Economy
…The economy of the Cabuza communities was agriculture-based, and they adopted several new farming tools and more complex irrigation techniques to grow maize, several kinds of squash, beans, quinoa,…
Arte
…shape of gourds. Ceramic pipes were common, generally taking the shape of an inverted T. The tembetá (an adornment worn in the lower lip) was a fairly common item, and…
Economía
The Diaguita were a farming culture that built irrigation networks to enable them to grow a wide range of crops such as maize, quinoa, beans and squash. It…
Economy
…including both larger animals such as wild camelids (guanacos and vicuñas) and tarucas (Andean deer), which provided meat and skins for clothing and shelter, and smaller ones such as birds…
Flutes and “Chinos”
…flute music. This complex tube spread through time, space and cultures to leave its mark among the Nasca, Tiwanaku, San Pedro de Atacama, Diaguita, Aconcagua and Araucanía peoples. The tube…
Beliefs and funeral rites
…The Chinchorro culture offers the earliest complex expression of a cult of the dead and ancestor worship on the arid South American coast. This is seen through the complicated…
Arte
…The ancient inhabitants of Patagonia painted representations of their cosmic vision on the walls of the rock shelters they inhabited, illustrating the high degree of ideological complexity that they…
Art
…The earliest cave paintings in the region were the work of the ancient Paleo-Indian groups, and the hunter peoples continued the tradition, producing both positive and relief images of…
Art
The earliest evidence of artistic expression during this period includes stones painted with abstract designs. Lumps of red pigment have also been found that were used to color…
Art
The Alto Ramírez people became highly skilled in textile making. Their designs incorporated geometric and figurative motifs for the first time, including images of human faces with rays…
Economy
…The economy of the Azapa cultural communities was based on fishing, hunting of marine mammals and gathering of mollusks and terrestrial plants. Their diet also included agricultural produce such…
Beliefs and funerary practices
…community. Any object, and especially those in the possession of powerful men, could be imbued with this supernatural power. Skulls engraved with designs relating to fertility (vulvas, for example) that…
Settlement pattern
…preferably adjacent to the corresponding ahu. These settlements held a core group of dwellings that usually belonged to high-ranking clan members, while common folk lived in permanent settlements furtherinland, near…
Settlement patterns
As one of the Southern-Chilean Canoe Tribes, the Kawésqar lived a nomadic life, paddling the archipelago’s channels in their canoes, moving from island to island in search of…
Economy
…and fish and shellfish, which were usually gathered. Shellfish, both raw and cooked, were a staple food and were collected by the women of the tribe, who often dove in…