Culture of the Mapuche
Knowing how the Mapuche live helps to understand how their past has helped lead them to their current lives.
|
Knowing how the Mapuche live helps to understand how their past has helped lead them to their current lives.
|
|
Dress and JewelryTraditional dress is something that is important in the Mapuche culture as well. The different dresses and clothing they wear all symbolize or come from different legends that they respect and live by. One of the most important aspects of Mapuche culture is the work they do with silver. Due to many of the indigenous leaving the common areas and prices in the jewelry increasing, there are not many more silversmiths local to the Mapuche regions. However, this makes the current work all the more valuable to the Mapuche and those who wish to support by purchasing items. Not only is it considered fashionable to wear silver, but the Mapuche also believe that wearing silver warns away bad spirits who are coming to cause mischief and mayhem. Different types of dress for women also showed what class they belonged to and if they married a rich man. Everyone wears different colored fabric, ranging from reds, blues, and yellows, but it is what is on your chest that matters. Women will wear a silver contraption that will essentially hold up their different shawls and scarves, and wearing one offers you a certain level of distinction. Wearing jewelry is especially important to women in the Mapuche culture, as it is an easy way to display their heritage, beliefs and traditions. Wearing jewelry is not so much as important to men, but they still do support the women in these endeavors, usually supplying them with the jewelry, but never making it themselves. The images below show what the typical top of a Mapuche woman could look like, adorned with all the jewelry, from necklaces to earrings, could all look like stacked. Next, there is an example of what would be worn down the chest in order to uphold all the different materials. Lastly, those are more examples of the different silver work that different Mapuche have made, and now are in the Smithsonian Museum to be preserved. All of the images below have been recreated by Caleb Bach, who took the pictures himself, and courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.
|