Mapuche religion

Mapuche religion is the traditional Native American religion of the Mapuche people. It is practiced primarily in south-central Chile and southwest Argentina. The tradition has no formal leadership or organizational structure and displays much internal variation.

Mapuche theology incorporates a range of deities and spirits. One of the most prominent deities is Ngünechen, sometimes equated with the Christian God. Communal prayer ceremonies are termed ngillatun and involve the provision of offerings and animal sacrifice. Various different ritual specialists were historically active among the Mapuche, but in the 20th century many of these died out, leaving the machi as the main kind. These machi are tasked with overseeing healing and divination, tasks accomplished through their communication with spirits.

Historically, the Mapuche were politically independent and prevented conquest by the Incan and Spanish Empires. In 1883 the Chilean military defeated the Mapuche and began to restrict them to reservations. Chilean efforts were then made to convert the Mapuche to Catholicism. From the 1990s, Mapuche religion underwent a revitalisation, with greater visibility and efforts to use it to encourage tourism.