Tales of “charm” and parliament in Huilliche poetry

Abstract

In oral huilliche tradition, the tales of charm configure a sacred space, ruled by an atemporality and geographically localized. There, the ancestors live in simbiosis with nature. Together, nature and ancestors, constitute a natural redoubt which dialogues with the huilliche people. Charm is a space that speaks and this condition is taken up by hulliche poetry. As for parliament ––as the word pledged or committed in public ceremony between Spanish and Mapuche parties–– this has been one of the discursive forms at the service of domination where the hegemonic word of the conqueror predominates, without the indigenous voice being apreciable in the pact that is reached. Huilliche poetry rewrites over those socio-historical practices, over these ––and others more of historiographic character–– and it updates them in a text like “Parlamento de Huenteao en la Isla Pucatrihue” by J. Huenun, as we analyze in this article.