The Creation of a Mapuche Sorcerer: Sexual Ambivalence, the Commodification of Knowledge, and the Coveting of Wealth

The potency of indigenous “bibles” and biographies: Mapuche shamanic literacy and historical consciousness

“…She simultaneously was and was opposed to each of her identities. But Mapuche also use identities contextually and relationally; how they deploy these categories depends, for example, on how long others have lived and eaten with them and if others behave according to Mapuche social and moral norms in particular contexts (Bacigalupo , , ; Course ) . As is the case for other indigenous peoples (Comaroff and Comaroff :17; De la Cadena :222–223), Mapuche identity categories that appear fixed are really in constant flux.…”

“…Rosa also lived in the community and behaved according to Mapuche social and moral norms (see Bacigalupo ). Machi Jorge, in contrast, was racially Mapuche but was construed as an awingkado sorcerer because he accumulated individual wealth and prestige through modern beliefs and practices at the expense of Mapuche morality, local sociopolitical hierarchies, and communal egalitarian ideals (Bacigalupo ).…”

“…In others contexts, Francisca claimed she was a “civilized machi” with a broad knowledge of Mapuche and non‐Mapuche worlds. She argued that she strategically juggled Mapudungun and Spanish, orality and literacy, rural and urban knowledges, and shamanism, Catholicism, and biomedicine to perform honorable work (Bacigalupo , , , n.d.). Many people in Millali, however, viewed her engagements with difference as contrary to Mapuche social and moral norms because they believed she was more interested in her own well‐being than that of the collective.…”

“…Panguilef, Alcaman, Francisca, and other machi sought to appropriate the dominators’ powers through magically produced, Amerindianized versions of Anglican and Capuchin Bibles, and in doing so, they construed both their personal and ethnic identities as well as their political autonomy in a new context. Mapuche men identified as “Catholic machi,” “machi priests,” “spiritual priests,” or “biblical machi” (see Bacigalupo ), but they did not want to permanently become like the Christian wingka. They used indigenized Christian concepts and symbols to “wrestle control of Christianity from whites while reshaping them to meet the needs of Indian people” (Brown :401) and to produce “bibles” of their own.…”

Amazonia as pharmacopia

“…Indecision comes closest to a metanarrative commentary on the pharmacopia fantasy and trope of finding answers to Western malaise within the ''authentic'' space of the rainforest. The rainforest in this book is acknowledged as a colonized space (and its indigenous guide is introduced as having grown up on a Christian mission, and currently practicing a self-conscious, intentional ''indigenous absolutism'' -the novel's take on hyper-traditionalism that has emerged in the Amazon indigenous communities as one of the responses to forces of ''modernity'' and ''development'' (Bacigalupo, 2005;Whitehead, 2002). The magical fruit/drug that the protagonists encounter deep in indigenous territory is literally a cure for alienation -not merely alienation in a general existential sense, but the concrete Western philosophical notion of alienation, as written about by Karl Marx.…”