Next month, Chileans will vote on a new and controversial constitution spotlighting Indigenous rights and land restitution.

Several Mapuche leaders say spirits appearing in dreams encourage the fight against capitalism in their ancestral territory. It’s on the question of rights over Indigenous land, a volatile issue in Chile’s politics, that spirituality gets entangled with ideology. “At the same time as we’re fighting for the river, we’re in the process of territorial recovery and spiritual reconstruction.” “I am the river too, we’re as sacred as the river,” Huichalaf said as a thunderstorm pounded her wooden cabin. “You have to keep the balance, and this is broken when one intervenes in natural spaces for a selfish purpose.” “Being part of nature, we cannot destroy part of ourselves,” said Lientur Ayenao, a machi or healer and spiritual guide who draws water from the Truful Truful for his ceremonies.

That has led many Mapuche across Chile’s water-rich south to fight hydroelectric plants and other projects they see as desecrating nature and depriving Indigenous communities of essential energies that keep them from getting sick. In the worldview of the Mapuche, Chile’s largest Indigenous group and more than 10% of its population, a pristine river is home to a spiritual force to revere, not a natural resource to exploit. “Human beings feel superior to the space where they go, but for us Mapuche, I belong to the earth, the earth doesn’t belong to me.”

“Nature always tells you something, always answers,” said Curin, who works as a park ranger in Conguillio National Park, at the river’s headwaters. MELIPEUCO, Chile (AP) - Mist suddenly arose from the Truful Truful River as it flowed below the snow-covered Llaima volcano, and Victor Curin smiled at the sun-dappled water spray.Ī leader in one of the Indigenous communities by the river’s shores in the Chilean Andes, Curin took it as a sign that the waterfall’s ngen - its owner and protector spirit - approved of his visit and prayer that mid-July morning.

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