The Mapuche and Arpillera Chilena

Handmade card showing  Mapuche girl wearing a poncho with  Gemil symbol from Mapuche flag. Gemil is a staggered cross or star, similar to the cross Inca or chacana and represents the art of manufacturing, science and knowledge.

The Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of present-day Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who shared a common social, religious and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage as Mapudungun speakers. Their influence once extended from the Aconcagua River to the Chiloé Archipelago and spread later eastward to the Argentine pampa. Today the collective group makes up 80% of the indigenous peoples in Chile, and about 9% of the total Chilean population. They are particularly concentrated in Araucanía. Many have migrated to the Santiago area for economic opportunities.



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 Arpillera chilena

Handmade cards from Nadie, Santiago de Chile

More about arpilleras in my previous post of Chile here. 

C is for Chile

 These cards are from our godchild whose father disapeared during Augusto Pinochet's regime. 

Santiago 13. 3. 1991
Arpillera " La Ronda"

Talleres Solidarios
Arzobispado de Santiago -Vicaria de la Solidaridad



Arpilleras are colorfully enchanting patchwork images telling stories of daily life.  This one is so  bright and cheerful, children playing and doing homeworks and the sun is shining.The history of these beautiful arpilleras is however quite dark.  More information about Arpillera Movement and Vicaria de la Solidaridad you find here



Arpillera Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos "Larga es la Ausencia"  La Cueca Sola - They Dance Alone

Cueca Solo is a protest song composed by English musician Sting and published first on the 1987 album Nothing Like the Sun. The song is a metaphor referring to mourning Chilean women (arpilleristas) who dance the Cueca, the national dance of  Chile, alone with photographs of their disappeared loved ones in their hands. Sting explained his song as a symbolic gesture of protest against the Chilean dictator Augusto Pnochet whose regime killed thousands of people between 1973 and 1990.

Stgo 27/6/90 

Wonderful view of the Osorno volcano

Birthday greetings for our daughter on July 1990

 Santiago de Chile: Vista de la ciudad desde el cerro San Cristobal.

City View from San Cristobal hill.

Stgo/ 3/5/91

There is a time for everything,

God's love lasts forever.

Love is a smile.