Mapuche women's organizing during Chile’s dictatorship

Lucy Traipe works in her garden in Padre Las Casas, Araucanía, Wallmapu (Chile) in October. Photo © Claudia Hernández.

Interview • Claudia Hernández • November 1, 2024 • Leer en castellano

I arrived in the Araucanía region of southern Chile in September, during the commemoration of the 51st anniversary of the start of Augusto Pinochet’s civil-military dictatorship. Araucanía is part of Wallmapu, which is the name for Mapuche territory. Here, too, the dictatorship was set against the Mapuche people. In early October, travelled to the city of Temuco to take part in a trawun (which means “meeting” in Mapuzungun, the Mapuche language) about the reconstruction of Mapuche historical memory.

Lucy Traipe and Elisa Avendaño Curaqueo, who were leaders of the Admapu organization (Admapu means territorial customs in Mapuzungun) in the 1980s, were the main speakers at the event. Attendees packed the hall. Both women spoke from their substantial accumulated experience and shared their own histories and feelings. They talked about participating in early land reclamations, the meetings that they organized, their struggles with sexism, and the joys and sorrows that they lived as organizers.

Fifty-one years after the beginning of the civil-military dictatorship, the trawun in Temuco made clear that reconstructing memory is an ongoing task. For the Mapuche people, the dictatorship dealt a painful blow to their organizing efforts and struggle to reclaim their lands, which the Chilean nation-state stole. Pinochet’s regime (1973–1989) not only disappeared and murdered more than 166 Mapuche people, it also refused to recognize the Mapuche people and territory as such.

This sparked an important transformation of the Mapuche struggle and lamngenes (“sisters” in Mapuzungun) played a crucial role shaping the strategies of resistance that emerged.

This was the case of the lamngenes from Mapuche Cultural Centers (CCM) and later of the Admapu organization which, throughout the 1980s, did a huge amount of work in Mapuche communities. They fought to defend and reclaim territory; to protect and preserve Mapuche language, culture, and practices and knowledge; and to provide counter-information and take on cases of human rights violations against Mapuche people.

As Mapuche researcher Simona Mayo points out, these activities made important contributions to the struggle against the dictatorship and to strengthening Mapuche identity during a period of repression. They were foundational to “the beginning of a new phase of Mapuche political organization and the integration of domo [women] into its leadership,” notes Mayo.

In the 1980s, the Admapu organization carried out activities and organized in the Araucanía, Biobío and Metropolitan Santiago regions. Its efforts to publicize the Mapuche struggle against the dictatorship, and its direct actions to recover land and hold Mapuche cultural events, had a national and international impact. 

It also marked a high point in the discourse, thinking and horizons of the Mapuche struggle. It was the first organization to call for the self-determination of the Mapuche nation, which remains a central demand today.

In the early 1990s, the Admapu lost its organizational strength, and an important group withdrew and went on to create the Consejo de Todas las Tierras [All Lands Council]. This was mainly due to the signing of the Nueva Imperial Agreement in 1989, itself a product of negotiations between the Admapu and the political parties that took power in post-dictatorship Chile. The 1993 creation of the National Corporation for Indigenous Development (CONADI), the Chilean government agency in charge of implementing development plans for Indigenous peoples, was one outcome of this negotiation.

Since then, the Admapu has maintained close ties with CONADI. Its spokespeople and representatives have served as institutional advisors. Today young leaders have revitalized the activities of the Admapu. They also participated in the trawun. 

As the trawun in Temuco came to an end, I approached Traipe to ask if I could interview her for Ojalá. She warmly accepted and kindly invited me to join her at her home for a discussion in the coming days. 

The road to the lamgnen Traipe’s house looks like a postcard of Araucanía’s rural landscapes. She lives in the middle of hills and fields in the commune of Padre Las Casas, near Temuco. She is 71-years old and dedicated to the work of caring for her mother, with whom she lives, and to tending her vegetable garden and animals. 

Traipe was working in her vegetable garden when I arrived. She showed me the vegetables that she had planted and the herbs and flowers decorating her home. She suggested that we speak under the shade of some small trees just past an estuary that crosses the land near her house. What follows is part of our conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity. 

Claudia Hernández: Could you tell us how you, as a Mapuche woman, began organizing?

Lucy Traipe: It started in the community where I was born. That community is called Manuel Chavarría, which is in the commune of Lautaro, and I can tell you why it is called that. It was named after the cacique, a descendant of Spaniards who came here. He stayed over generations and married a Mapuche woman. So, this person who was not Mapuche became Mapuche, because he stayed for three generations. In a community, if a person speaks and listens well, that person is probably going to lead the community. So he became a leader.

I was born and raised there. There was an awareness that there were so many abandoned properties and we realized we could do something about the hunger that we were experiencing at that time. I started organizing at an early age, when I was 17. That was how my life as a leader began.

This was around when [Salvador] Allende became President of the Republic (1970–1973). There were Agrarian Reform Centers at the time. There was one in each of the land occupations [on reclaimed lands]. Within them, there were mothers' centers. That was where I started organizing with other women. But then the military dictatorship began and I was persecuted.

The Mapuche Cultural Centers (CCM) were created in 1978 and the Admapu in 1980. They are the same thing. The dictatorship forced us to remove the word “Mapuche” from our name, so we renamed the organization the Admapu Association of Small Artisans and Farmers. It achieved legal status with that name and has now existed for more than 40 years. 

I led the Admapu from 1983 until 1991. The government persecuted the organization; both its leaders and the rank and file. It harassed, imprisoned and killed people. They first murdered Manuel Melin, a young man from the Universidad de la Frontera, who was doing volunteer work in the community of Victoria. The day after they killed him, they came to the organization and left a funeral wreath that said “ACHA [Acción Chilena Anticomunista] does not forgive: today it was Manuel Melin, tomorrow it will be you,” with all of our names and surnames. But we continued just the same. We didn’t slow down.

CH: How did Mapuche women organize during the dictatorship?

LT: It was natural for us, but it was also influenced by what remained of Allende's government. For example, at that time maternal health of women in the countryside was a crucial issue. Back then, to go to the city, there was limited access to transportation. There was only one bus that made the trip. You had to stand in line to get it and it was always crammed with people. It was so difficult. The need was so obvious. 

We needed rural health clinics. I was the representative that went to the hospital in the city and told them what we needed. That is how we were able to set up health centers in the countryside that cared for children by giving them milk, vaccinations, check-ups and things of that nature. 

Organizing women was difficult, because they always had  to take care of everything: the bread, the food, and the diapers. At that time, there were no diapers like the ones we buy nowadays. The women had to wash the diapers and do all the chores. They had very limited time. They also needed their husband's permission. Nobody went out without their husband's permission. It was all so complicated.

We would meet at people’s houses. I would bring information, because I would go to all the offices and get brochures, information and so on. Our meetings were short, because they were far away and I traveled by foot. Organizing in the community was very important.

CH: At that time, you also organized meetings with women settlers from other regions to educate them about Mapuche women's struggles. 

LT: People came from different places, including women settlers and students. We would meet and talk about how they organized elsewhere. Their experiences were different. We talked about pain, because many women had disappeared children and husbands. It was a way of accompanying one other. We knew that we weren’t the only ones. There were many other cases. It wasn’t about domestic issues or how to get more milk or material things. It was about getting justice. 

People hardly knew about the detentions and persecutions that we Mapuche people suffered. People in the community were tortured. And all we had were newspaper clippings, which we used to make people aware of all the mistreatment and humiliation that we went through.

Later, I remember that I was in a magazine, because I went to a meeting in my Mapuche clothing. I wear my traditional clothing when I think that I need to show resistance. And there was so much discrimination in Santiago. We made it a point to wear our clothes and speak Mapuche when we went there. 

CH: Did you continue organizing after the dictatorship?

LT: When I stepped down as leader of the Admapu in 1991, I began working in the institution, which was the special commission for Indigenous peoples. The CONADI (National Corporation for Indigenous Development) was created in 1993. I worked there for 26 years.

During that time, I was also president of my own organization, the Housing Committee. We managed to get access to housing of lowest quality housing that the dictatorship provided at that time. Really, the only thing that we wanted was water and electricity. The rest we did on our own. 

Then came what was called “happiness is coming” [a slogan of the “No to the dictatorship” campaign during the 1988 Plebiscite that referred to the beginning of the post-dictatorship governments]. We worked hard to make housing a reality. We pushed so that those of us who were heads of household would not be given just anything, so that no one would not be left without a house for another year. 

We demanded a solution for all eighty-three families that were there, not for the five or six heads of household, but for all of us. That’s how we managed to get housing in Temuco. 

CH: How do you see the current state of Mapuche organizing and of Mapuche women?

LT: The organizing is very dispersed. I don’t think there is an organization specifically for women; maybe there is in the case of some specific project. 

The situation is very complex, in the current context of repression that we continue to suffer. I think that the struggle can be reorganized by recovering the value of organizing each sector, each community, and in responding to its needs. When one has responsibility before one's community, when one calls the meetings, the gatherings, the activities; only then one can speak on behalf of the community. That isn’t necessarily happening now. Those who speak say whatever they’re thinking and the community might not even know about it.

CH: That connects to your message about valuing community organizations.

LT: Any kind of organization. And doing so without forgetting that women's struggle is also a struggle to build something for themselves.