Confrontation, Territory and “Spirituality”. The Place of the Mapuche Rituals in the Process of Power

Abstract

We inquire about the organization and practice of Mapuche rituals in northwest of Chubut and southwest of Río Negro. We try to locate the development of these ceremonies as part of the struggle for territory spanning families, communities and organizations in the area and the political and social alliances that develop.
We argue that, at present, prioritize the area of confrontation allows to watch that ritual and territory are articulated through the construction of social forces.
We place special emphasis on demonstrating the validity and effectiveness of the ritual celebrations, pointing that this “instrumental” character doesn´t deny its constantly updated mythological and philosophical content. To do so, we analyze ritual organization and its senses, review the history of the Mapuche groups in Argentina and describe some ethnographic cases. We rely on fieldwork in the region since 2009.