ABSTRACT
The Mapuche (People of the Land) inhabit the lands between the Bío-Bío River and Chiloé Island in Chile and western Argentina. Anthropologists and government officials often use the name Araucano to designate these people, who share a common language (Araucanian, according to Joseph Greenberg 1989:383), though many continue to identify themselves as Pehuenche, Puelche, Tehuelche, Ranquel, Huarpe, and Pampa-Boroga. The politics of naming and specifying cultural identities in this area of Chile and Argentina is a puzzle that can be solved only through a discussion of archaeological records, musical forms, and ritual practices. The history of the southern Andes unites traditions of warriors, prophets, shamans, and nomadic pastoralists under a linguistic umbrella, mapudungun ‘words of the land’.
