Ñuke Mapu
http://www.mapuche.info/
Centro de Documentación Mapuche
Mapuche Documentation Center

2017-06-25 | Campañas | Indoamericano

The New Year celebration June 24th, 2017

Calgary. Canada: The Mapuche We Tripantu

The We tripantu is the New Year celebration for Argentina and Chile’s indigenous Mapuche people. It is the Mapuche’s equivalent to the INTI RAYMI in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. The Pachamama, the Mother Earth for the Andean Indigenous and the Ñuke Mapu for the Mapuche, begins to bloom fertilized by the sun ( el sol) . From the Andean heights to the southern tip the sun starts to come back to earth, after the longest night of the year; it is the winter Solstice. Everything starts to bloom again.


The We Tripantu celebration begins with the winter solstice on the 21st of June. People start the celebration on the evening of the 20th, 21st, or 22nd of June, where family members and the community gather together around a fire or stove to eat, drink, dance and tell traditional stories. They play instruments like the Trutruka horn, the Pifilka flute, the Trompe harp and the Kultrun drum. As the first birds begin to sing around dawn, people head down to nearby rivers and streams to wash and cleanse away anything negative they have picked up throughout the year; disease, evil thoughts, bad spirits. It all gets washed away with the river, leaving bathers ready to be renewed by the young sun as it rises for the first time in the New Year.

Food is an important part of this celebration. It is a big pot luck. People bring all kinds of food: meats, including chicken, pork, beef and even horse meat. People bring drinks like MUDAY, a cloudy alcoholic drink home made from fermented maize, wheat and peas. The SOPAIPILLAS is a deep fried dough and TORTILLAS a bread cooked in the embers of the fire. El MOTE, made from boiled husked wheat, is also eaten to celebrate the We Tripantu.

Sports games and dancing are also very important part of the We Tripantu Celebration. Teenagers and adults play PALIN a game very similar to hockey where two teams of five to 15 players use curved sticks to hit a leather ball. All members of the community join in with the traditional mapuche dances (PURRUN) like: Lonkomew, Cawellu Purrun, Mazatu and Choyque Purrun.

We will celebrate We Tripantu in Calgary, at the Chilean Community Hall – 4774 Westwinds Drive N.E. at 7:00 pm. on Saturday June 24, 2017. The We Tripantu is an increasingly mainstream affair, with Chileans and Canadians alike using this celebration as the perfect excuse to learn more about Mapuche Culture.

Victor Manuel Gavilan
Mapuche Support Group
Calgary. Canada

Fuente: Centro de Documentación Mapuche, Ñuke Mapu

Publicado: 2017-06-25 | Revisado: | Enlace de actual documento: http://www.mapuche.info/?pagina=6943