ABSTRACT
There is no single key to a complete and systematic understanding of rural popular culture in Chile, which is almost as varied as the locales that make up the colorful Chilean countryside. In the urban perspective that has dominated Chilean social sciences, rural popular culture has a fleeting, almost haunting quality. It is that from which the urban poor have come—although they are often only a generation or less from their rural roots. On feast days and other holidays and in the summer; they are likely to jam buses and the lower-class train cars to return to the villages in which they were born.
In this chapter, Salinas offers a theme that unites the concerns of vast numbers of ordinary rural people: the (apparently) simple theme of love. His chapter is a testament to the fact that love continues to affirm life despite the stark realities that have always confronted rural people in Chile and despite the new forces that have largely prevailed since 1973. As Salinas understands it, love is preeminently social, bringing people together and offering hope. In recent years, its appearance in a multitude of forms (some of which he describes) has been all the more poignant in a climate in which silence has reigned. One must remember that it is in the countryside, both north and south, where the mass’graves have been found since 1989.
Salinas, trained as both a theologian and a historian, has taken a particular interest in the rural dimensions of Chile’s history and culture. He continues to work extensively with teams of interviewers who are intent on recovering the folk traditions of the country.
