Machi Kimün. Yesterday and today

Gen are the tutelary spirits that take care of people and nature in the Itxofill Mogen Mapuche. It is thus that every Being has a Gen, then, the Machi Gen is the being of the Machi. The Machi Püllü comes from the Wenu Mapu and is an intermediary between the Machi and the God of the Mapuche.

The Püllü comes every time he is invoked during the küimi or trance state of the Machi. He speaks to the Machi through the Zugumachife, his or her assistant and interpreter, to diagnose the illness of the participants in the ceremony. The original learning was given to the Machi through the pewmatufe, who are the people with the gift of dreaming.

The Machi is the first to learn the ancient wisdom of the Mapuche worldview, in which God is the confluence of the four elements of the world: earth, water, air and fire. The Mapuche Being speaks of four people: Kuze, an old woman or earth, Fücha, an old man or water, Ülcha, a young woman or air, and Weche, a young man, fire and sun. According to Mapuche wisdom, these four people are newen or energies and without their union, there is no mogen, no life.

Many times people lament that the spirits have assigned them to be Machi. The Machil begins in adolescence and in four ways. The first and most important is by blood inheritance, but skipping a generation. The second and more traditional, is with perrimontun or visions of spirits that are had suddenly. The third, by pewma or dreams that indicate and oblige to be Machi, under penalty of living with illness. The fourth is for personal interest, going through a long apprenticeship, but they are the least esteemed in the community.

The Machil lasts four years. The first thing to learn from a machi teacher is to use the drum, the protocol of the ceremonies, to know diseases and remedies and to enter a trance and address the spirits or Machi Püllu. After two years, the apprentice plants the Chinkol Foye, a bundle of cinnamon, laurel or maki branches, with blue, light blue, white and black flags. In the fourth year, she can give herself over to her work as a Machi and plants her Rewe in front of her ruka, facing east or Pu-El-Mapu in the Geyku-Rewen ceremony. This is a long prayer, where the Machi in a trance dances the ‘machi dance’ to the rhythm of her drum, flutes and rattles; at the end the spirits speak, the Zugumachife transmits its messages and the celebration begins with abundant food and drink.

The Zugumachife mediates between Machi Püllü, the spirit of the machi, and the Machi. He always encourages her, and lets her know that all of her help team is present. When the Machi enters a trance, he is who talks with the spirit, says the disease and the remedy.

The Yegül are helpers who make sure that the musical instruments, especially kultxug (drum) and pifillcas (flute), txutxucas (trumpet) and wazas (rattle), play the rhythm that is needed when treating the patient. The Ñankañ is the one who dances with the Machi once she enters a trance, with canelo tree branches in her hands. Every ceremony has afafan, the cries of encouragement that the participants sing repeatedly following a strict order that allows the spirits to arrive at the ritual.

Depending on the ceremony and the spirit of the Machi, certain domestic animals must be consecrated in the ritual to help the Machi enter a trance, such as the karre-karre spiritual hen that is made to dance tied to the Rewe or the keñeyken spiritual sheep, which accompanies her with her face and back painted blue.

Mapuche medicine is found in all kinds of trees, bushes, and herbs. The knowledge of the Machi is in the dose that is required to prepare the medicine. Among the most important trees are oak (koyam), boldo (foló), laurel (txiwe) and canelo (foye). There is a great variety of bushes and among the herbs, miyaye and latuwé, which are hallucinogenic plants that the Machi used in the past to practice catalepsy and prophecy. There are also the pütxem, which are leaves and herbs that the Machi smoke during ceremonies, today replaced by tobacco cigarettes.

Extractos de los documentales Sueños de cultrún, de Pablo Rosemblatt, 1992; Vida entre dos mundos, de Ana María Oyarce, 1986; Machi Eugenia, de Felipe Laredo y Gunvor Sorli, 1992. Pueblo mapuche, sur de Chile. Archivo Audiovisual Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino.