Unlike most self-identifying Mapuche1 who live in urban spaces as a result of colonial-based inequalities, María Lara Millapan was born and raised in the rural lof of Chihuimpilli, Quepe in Chile, away from the hustle and cacophony of cities. As a child, her family spoke to her in Mapuzugun, allowing her to use the language in the same place it was spoken for centuries. After completing a university degree as a first-generation student, she went on to pursue higher education, earning a PhD in Didactics of Language and Literature at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. Currently she is Associate Professor of Education at the Universidad Católica de Villarrica and she is an Associate Researcher at the Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Studies (CIIR). She also leads a Mapuzugun revitalization program in Villarica. In addition to her multiple books of poetry,María Lara is frequently invited to speak, nationally and internationally, on the importance of place-based language learning.2 Her poetry, which she often writes in Mapuzugun first and translates to Spanish, expresses a profound understanding of Mapuzugun’s relationship to the land: “the language of the land” is the translation of the word “Mapuzugun”. In line with her suggestion that “the way to return to nature, is for a person to be physically and completely with her”3, we seek to show how our selection of poems from the book Trekan Antü similarly invite readers to immerse themselves in nature through the language of the land, even in translation.
Our approach to Lara’s poetic work is embedded in the notion of itrofill mognen: a concept from the Mapuzugun language that expresses the importance of the relationship between human and non-human life. “Itro” translates as “the composition of many lives that share the same space”4 and “fill” means that each being has its own life, and their interaction and interdependence create balance, which is necessary for the proliferation of life. If we read María Lara’s poetry with itrofill mognen in mind, we notice dynamic relationships between human and non-human life that the poetic voice hopes the readers will become attune to. In this sense, the voice assumes that poetry can be a welcoming teacher for non-Mapuche readers.
In the first poem of our selection, “The Mapuche”, the poetic voice begins by directing her message to people who seek to speak “about the Mapuche” and “interpret their voice”, in other words, to people who come to Mapuche culture as outsiders. She asks them to “listen to the elders” and to consider the non-human world in ways that are likely new, for example, to “observe the river’s edge and the tears of an ancient tree”. The invitation is to observe these beings, the river and an ancient tree, through contemplation and the human senses. These beings, the voice states, all contain “our breath”. Through breath, human and non-human worlds co-exist and intermingle. The poetic voice does not tell us what we will hear when we listen, but the purpose of the message is for non-Mapuche to open themselves to the feelings of non-human beings just as they would, hopefully, with human beings.
Pu Mapuche5
Upa dungulmi inchiñ mew
alkütufinge pu füchake che
upa kimülmi tañi chem pin engün
adkintunge inaltu lewfu,
aliwen tañi külleñu
panqui tani trekan
kiñe metawe tant widün,
nentungelu rüpü mew
upa dungulmi inchiñ mew
adkintunge, alkütunge
chukau tañi ülkantun
pire ñi newen ka tralkan ñi newen
llamkefillin
ülkantun tati, wirar, dungun, nor dungun
The Mapuche
If you want to speak about us, the Mapuche
listen to the elders
and if you want to interpret their voice
observe the river´s edge,
the tears of an ancient tree
the tracks of a puma
the song of a clay pitcher
unearthed on the path
they hold our breath
if you want to speak about us
observe, feel and listen
the song of the Chukau bird
the power of the hail and thunder
make sense to us
they are song, they are scream, they are history, and they are justice
Mapuche
Si quieres hablar de nosotros los mapuche
escucha a los abuelos
y si quieres interpretar su voz
observa la orilla de un río,
las lágrimas de un árbol antiguo
los rastros de un puma
los motivos de un cántaro
desenterrado en el camino
tienen nuestro aliento.
Si quieres hablar de nosotros
observa, siente, escucha
el canto del chukau
la fuerza del granizo y de los truenos
tienen sentido para nosotros
es canto, es grito, es historia, es justicia.6
María Lara’s poetics speak of a world where humans are unexceptional. By considering itrofill mongen, we might notice the poetic voice’s call for humans to not necessarily “love nature”, but rather, to be considerate of the many separate and connected beings found on earth, especially noticeable in rural spaces: the tracks of a puma and the human song that accompanies the making of clay pots. Both are the lasting evidence of living beings; one non-human and the other human. Her poem seems to say that both mark the world with their bodies in equally important ways.
“When they changed our names/ we had names of birds,/ of animals and stones,/ names of trees and flowers/ of the territory where we were born”. With these verses from the poem “Name”, we find a poetic view of the Mapuche culture in which the order of nature is represented as something animated and sensitive. Here, everything in the surrounding landscape is part of a worldview in which humans do not dominate nature; this way of seeing the world can also be read as a critique of the development of extractivism in the Global South.
Some verses make us think, for a moment, that the stones, the mountains, and the birds that spread their wings wide are not only living but that what they are telling us is also alive; we can feel that life beating in their song. Let’s listen to Maria Isabel Lara Millapan:
Üy
Kakekününgi
Niefuin üñüm üy,
kulliñ üy ka kura üy
anümka ka rayen
chew taiñ choyünmew,
ko üy niefuiñ,
fotra ka pire
taiñ pu chuchu taiñ üy
taiñ laku
müleweki tañi pu reñma mew
ramtumetuiñ
chem üy am ta niefuiñ.
Name
When they changed our names
We had the names of birds,
of animals and rocks,
the names of trees and flowers
from the land where we were born,
we had names of water,
of mud and snow
the same names as our grandparents
were inherited by their children and their grandchildren
We will ask
about the name that belongs to us.
Nombres
Cuando nos cambiaron los nombres
Teníamos nombres de aves,
de animales y de piedras,
nombres de árboles y de flores
del territorio donde nacimos,
teníamos nombres de agua,
de barro y de nieve
los mismos nombres de los abuelos
se quedaban heredados en sus hijos y en sus nietos.
vamos a preguntar
por el nombre que nos pertenece.7
Listening to her voice, the poet seems to denounce racial discrimination, cultural assimilation and the little linguistic recognition of her people. As Franz Fanon teaches us, racism takes on multiple forms and operates on different levels, depending on the context; for example, the denial of one’s own language (loss of Mapuzugun) and access to public or private institutions (discrimination based on surname or skin color). Hence, in the poem above, the recovery of old names, the surnames of the grandfathers and grandmothers, their own names denied by the Chilean and Argentine States, whose histories are linked to the nature of an ancient territory, is of central importance.
One of the poems in which the affinity of Mara’s creations to the original territory is most evident is “An Absent Land”. In this poem dreams (pewma) can deliver an orientation, a message to find the sacralized space of the human and non-human.
Ngelay kiñe mapu
Pifuymi tami dungual üñum ka kürüf engo
fey pelkeymi tañi ngümanmew pillmaikeñ
ngewenulu kay anümka
ka kiñe kalfu wenu tañi müpual.
Petu kutrantuli dungun
fey mew wiraringün
ngewenulu mew
weñanküy tañi ülkantun
ngelay kiñe mapu
tañi mütrümafiel mawün
tañi mütrümafiel antü,
fey pu pewma küpali dungun
chew taiñ amual
tañi trafmetuafiel.
An Absent Land
You wanted to talk about the birds and the wind
and you were struck by the pain of the swallows
because missing are the trees
and a bluer sky for flying.
History is still wounded
that’s why they cry out
with all the absence,
the song despairs
without the sacred place
to invoke the rain
to invoke the sun,
and dreams offer the signs needed
to find them.
Una tierra ausente
Quisiste hablar de los pájaros y del viento
y te llamó la atención el dolor de las golondrinas
porque faltan los árboles
y un cielo más azul para volar.
Está herida la historia todavía
por eso gritan
entre la ausencia,
se desespera el canto
sin el lugar sagrado
para invocar a la lluvia
para invocar el sol,
y los sueños ofrecen las señales por donde ir
a encontrarlos.8
As is clear from these verses, one of the constant concerns that appears in Lara’s poetic work has to do with spirituality (“without the sacred place”), colonial violence (“history is still wounded”), and the role that nature plays in Mapuche culture (“because the trees are missing”). As has been widely studied, the Mapuche concept of land refers to socially shared spaces of meaning. The land is the basis —material and symbolic— of all forms of life and is inseparable from the poetic word. In this sense, it is possible that the sung word (ül) for the Mapuche people is an elaboration that is inseparable from the everyday; it is not purely rhetorical, but encompasses the cultural and spiritual life of human beings.
In Maria Isabel Lara Millapan’s poetry we find an aesthetic sensitivity, a way of being in the world that constantly recognizes the power of the earth. Exploring her main themes, such as Mapuche spirituality, the world of dreams and the historical situation of his people, we read a poetry able to speak the language of the earth and, from there, to make human beings dialogue with animals, with stones, with the roots of trees and with their own histories. In first-person narration, she says: “Poetry is the language of the land of my grandparents, it is the Trayenko (spring) where the lawen (traditional plants) grow, it is the memory of my childhood by the fireside […]”.9 From this perspective, the poetic word of Lara Millapan is based on deeply rooted relationships with the land and all forms of life. It also expresses an understanding of the land as a place of historical memory, imagination, and resistance in a context of global socio-ecological crisis.
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Endnotes
- According to data from the latest 2017 Census, the indigenous population in Chile amounts to 2,185,759 (12.8%) of which 1,745,417 (79.8%) belong to the Mapuche people, i.e. 9.9% of the country’s total population. Araucanía, located in the south-central part of the country, is the region where a significant part of the Mapuche population (18.3%) is concentrated, mainly in the city of Temuco, the regional capital. However, it is the Metropolitan region where the largest number of people who self-identify as Mapuche live, 614 thousand, or 35% of the total.
- Her books include: Puliwen ñi pewma (sueños de un amanecer). Santiago: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Campus Villarrica, 2002; Alé. Luz de luna. Santiago: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2002; Kimün. Aprendiendo mapugungun a través de poesías y relatos. Santiago: Centro Estudios Interculturales e Indígenas, 2014.
- https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=240768721013853, minute 4:10.
- https://www.endemico.org/itrofill-mogen-toda-la-vida-sin-excepcion/
- The original versions of the poems were written in Spanish and Mapuzugun (the language of the Mapuche people). Therefore, all English translations are ours.
- María Isabel Lara Millapan. 2017. Trekan Antü (Santiago: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), 21.
- Lara Millapan, Trekan, 27.
- Lara Millapan, Trekan, 25.
- María Isabel Lara Millapan. 2021. “Testimonio”. Revista Chilena de Literatura, n.° 104, pp. 13-16. https://revistaliteratura.uchile.cl/index.php/RCL/article/view/65768.
Damián Gálvez
Allison Ramay