MAPUCHE

adminPablo PiovanoPeriscopeSettembre 2025

Fotografie di Pablo Piovano

Rubrica: Periscope
A cura di Claudio Composti
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IL RITORNO DELLE VOCI ANTICHE

Mapuche significa “popolo della terra”. È il nome degli indigeni che abitano da tempo immemorabile la Patagonia sudamericana. Questo popolo ha resistito all’invasione spagnola del XVI secolo e poi alla formazione degli Stati del Cile e dell’Argentina, che alla fine del 1800 hanno commesso un genocidio che non è ancora stato riconosciuto dalla storia ufficiale. Attualmente, le comunità Mapuche si ribellano su entrambi i versanti delle Ande (Argentina e Cile) per difendere l’acqua e la terra dall’avanzata delle industrie petrolifere, forestali, idroelettriche e minerarie. Dal 2018, il fotografo Pablo Piovano ha viaggiato attraverso questa regione ritraendo la vita quotidiana delle comunità, il processo di recupero culturale e territoriale di queste popolazioni e i conflitti che si verificano in quei territori.

November 19th, 2018 Ercilla, IX Region of Araucania, Chile. One of the communal roads of Ercilla, less than a hundred meters from the highway. Armored vehicles and tanks of the special groups of police officers enter at night. From the communities, they try to avoid it by cutting down eucalyptus trees that cross the roads and with bonfires.
November 23rd, 2018. Ercilla Commune, IX Region of Araucania, Chile. 80 percent of the students who attend the Ercilla Lyceum are Mapuche. A few days after the murder of Catrillanca, they took the school asking for justice and the withdrawal of the "Jungle Command." They formed barricades with desks and faced police repression, which evicted them by throwing tear gas inside the school.
November 17th, 2018 Community of Temucuicuci, Ercilla, IX Region of Araucania, Chile. Procession to the cemetery. Camilo Catrillanca drives a tractor when he was shot in the neck. Next to him, a 15-year-old boy was traveling and was “miraculously saved” from 5.56 caliber bullets, “war shells,” according to judicial experts. Five of those bullets hit the tractor, and another 21 were found nearby. They were shot by members of the "Jungle Command", who in their first statements referred to a "confrontation." The child's statement, and the evidence subsequently collected by the prosecution, showed that there was no “confrontation".
February 20th, 2019 Huañaco Millao Autonomous Community, Ercilla, IX Region of Araucania, Chile. Claudio Andres Huentecol is the spokesperson for his community. He was arrested for supporting territorial recoveries. In Collipulli prison, he was tortured and went on a 47-day hunger strike demanding his freedom and recognition of his innocence.
February 24th, 2019. Coñomil Epuleo Community, Ercilla, Malleco Province, IX Araucania Region, Chile Ngillatun, ancient Mapuche religious ceremony. A child participates in Choike Purrun, a traditional Mapuche dance that mimics the movements of a bird.
November 14th 2019 Ercilla, IX Region of Araucania, Chile. Anniversary of the murder of the young Mapuche Camilo Catrillanca
July 28, 2019 Roble Carimallin Community, Maihue, Region of the Rivers, Chile. Chile Children in the Mapuche cemetery of Maihue. Very close to it is intended to install the hydroelectric plant where the communities in the area oppose the project. The masks are used in the "guillatunes", spiritual ceremonies carried out by the spiritual authorities once a year.
February 1st, 2019 Nahuel Huapi National Park, Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina Llon Lagoon. View of the Tronador hill that has the particularity of dividing the demographic limits between Argentina and Chile.
February 28th, 2019 Neuquen, Argentina. Aerial view of a drilling rig. With less than 10 percent of its expansion, the Vaca Muerta megaproject generates a trend of socio-environmental conflicts: air, land and water pollution, health problems and even earthquakes in the region. The Vaca Muerta Formation, commonly known as the Vaca Muerta (Spanish for Dead Cow) is a geologic formation located in the Neuquén Basin in northern Patagonia, Argentina. It holds the second largest shale gas reserve in the world, and the fourth largest shale oil reserve. Several international oil companies, such as Total, Chevron and Shell, participate in the extraction. They use fracking, a method with a much bigger environmental impact then regular extraction. The region of Vaca Muerta has suffered almost a hundred small earthquakes since the fracking activities started. It's unclear if there's a direct relation with the fracking, the authorities are only starting to investigate now. Inhabitants of the region, among them several indigenous Mapuche communities who claim the land as ancestral, are worried about the future.
August 9, 2021 Neuquén, Argentina Miley is 7 years old. In her community's territory, where there are more than 40 oil and gas wells, she no longer sees birds or wild animals.
March 25, 2021 Allen, Rio Negro, Argentina. Enrique Navarreta tells what it's like to live next to a drilling tower: 'There's noise of the drilling and the trucks all the time, and artificial light 24 hours. It also causes water shortage, leaks, and the loss of birds and other animals that we had in this region.'
February 8, 2019 Ravenous fire in Lautaro. During summer 2019 in Chile, more than 5,300 forest fires were recorded.
February 12th, 2019 Commune of Cunco, province of Cautin, IX Region of Araucania, Chile. Juana Calfunao Pailalef is one of the main authorities of central-southern Chile. She defines herself as a Mapuche fighter to affirm her sovereignty, resist state and corporate violence, and condemn the extraction of natural resources from her ancestral lands. In November 2006, she was sentenced to 150 days in prison by the Chilean state for protesting against the illegal construction of a private road in her community. She spent four and a half years in jail. In October 2015, Calfunao Pailaléf visited the United States and testified in front of the Organization of American States (OAS), demanding the Chilean government for various forms of violence committed against the Mapuche people, including the appropriation of indigenous lands and the mistreatment of women Mapuches and children.