The
Mingako Kultural, a small, annual artistic gathering in the Mapuche
comunidad of Saltapura in southern Chile, draws on the
mingako, a communal harvest ritual predating mechanized farming, to cultivate local creativity and counter the effects of urbanization, poverty and appropriation. At the 4
o Mingako Kultural in 2010, poet Erwin Quintupil, the event’s founder, recounted his childhood in Saltapura, and highlighted the gathering’s autonomy. Eschewing NGOs, municipal governments, and other external institutions, Quintupil counterposes the Mingako against the Chilean state’s post-authoritarian notion of culture as a resource, wherein, following George Yúdice, “management, conservation, access, distribution, and investment . . . take priority” (2003: 1). This paper examines how resistance materializes as ritual confronting what Foucault termed “governmentality,” or “the ensemble [of] institutions, procedures, analyses . . . calculations and tactics” which seek to maximize the productivity of populations (Foucault 2001: 219-20; Turner 2008: 4). Frequently considered dissent under the dictatorship (1973-1990), today indigenous cultural expressions, similarly to agriculture, generate economic and political resources, which the state channels to support its development agenda.
Against this current, Quintupil gives all attendees a chance to share their creativity, during three days of camping, conversation, and abundant food at his childhood campo (country home). Also at the 2010 Mingako, the Mapuche rocker Colelo performed an acoustic version of “Ngapitún,” his song depicting traditional courtship. “Rompiendo el silencio” (breaking the silence), sings Colelo, a young man flies through the predawn light on horseback, kidnapping his betrothed. As the couple ride off, violence gives way to carressing and passion. A wonderfully romanticized rock song, “Ngapitún” invites listeners to imagine courtship unintervened by Chilean-style marriages, stereotyped as dysfunctional and monotonous. I explore the reconstruction of rituals such as mingako and ngapitún, as interventions into a social order that selectively appropriates indigenous expressions and discourages cultural autonomy.
