BOOK
REVIEWS
Tipití
(2003) 1(2):223–239 © 2003SALSA
ISSN
1545-4703 Printed in
Book Reviews 237
La Voz de Kultrun
en la Modernidad: Tradición
y Cambio en la Terapéutica
de Siete Machi Mapuche (The
Kultrun’s Voice in Modernity: Tradition and
Change in the Therapeutics of Seven Mapuche Machi).
Ana Mariella
Bacigalupo.
Santiago, Chile: Ediciones Universidad Catolica de Chile,
2001.
271 pp. $18.00 (paper). ISBN 956-14-0623-2 [http://www.puc.cl/edicionesuc/catalogo/html/frautor.html]
MARCELO
FIORINI
Substitute
the term “culture” for “kultrun”
and one might well sum up
Bacigalupo’s
dialogic ethnography about the lives, and the hearts and minds
of seven
Mapuche machi as
“The Voice of Culture in Modernity.” Indeed, the
kultrun
is more than merely a traditional
ceremonial drum played by the machi
(shamans) in their therapeutic sessions to aid them in
ridding their patients
from ills
that include modern ailments such as stress, depression, lovesickness,
alienation,
economic problems, AIDS, and cancer. The machi’s
drum embodies
the very
rhythm through which culture is fashioned and refashioned as it is
constantly
reinvented by the Mapuche. In light of this, Bacigalupo
achieves a
new
definition of the concept of culture, not as a form of collective corpus, but
as an
instrument whose tuning and timbre can be changed and whose ragas or
tunes
are not as much replayed, as they are played with, or can be (re)created
on any
new occasion. But the tuning obviously needs the tuner, and here the
role of
the individual (and the Machi,
more specifically) in this conception of
culture
is emphasized. The same malleability is extended to concepts like
identity
and tradition, for the author states at the very beginning of her book:
“identity, culture, and tradition are dynamic and arise in
dialog,
contradistinction,
and identification with the other” (p. 9). Nevertheless, one
should
not mistakenly think that “dialog” here means some kind of rapport or
colloquia
between two ways of seeing the universe (one traditional, the other
modern),
for the author shows very clearly that her use of the term preserves
Book Reviews 238
the
original Greek meaning of multivocality and multireferentiality.
Bacigalupo’s
book is one of the first truly Bakhtinian
ethnographies to be
published
on ethnomedicine and shamanism.
The
book begins by introducing a consensual view of Mapuche cosmogony,
medical
practices, initiation, and the ritual knowledge from which the machi
derive
their more personalized cultural vistas. The “voice” of the kultrun
induces
the machi
into a trance, or state of heightened
consciousness that allows them
to
travel to the spirit world. The rhythmic pulse of the kultrun
implies a force
that can
be appropriated and redirected for curing the individual, reintegrating
her or
him to the social milieu, as well as for promoting good relations among
the
living, their ancestors, and the spirits of the natural world, thereby
guaranteeing
fruitful harvests and deliverance from disgrace. “Foreign” elements
like the
horse, the shotgun, the Chilean flag, the Christian cross, and images
or
invocations of Jesus and the Virgin become part of the machi’s
ritual
paraphernalia.
They are added to cultural items like the rewe,
the ritual pole
or
personal altar that represents a machi’s
spirit; the kaskawilla,
shakers that
accompany
the drumming; the metawe,
vases associated with fertility; and the
decorated
kultrun
itself, which contains personalized signs
of stars, the moon,
the sun,
and a cross indicating the cardinal points.
According
to Bacigalupo, the Mapuche distinguish positive and
negative
influences
in the world and it is the individual’s relationship to such influences
that
constitutes one’s health. Even though diseases are associated with the
negative,
they can have positive connotations if they are caused by beneficial
spiritual
entities as ways of coaxing people into acting morally, or if they act as
signs
of a spiritual calling for assuming the role of machi
(as in a kind of illness
called
a machi-kutran).
Since they deal with both these relatively positive and
negative
influences, the machi are
ambiguous beings par excellence. The ways
they
practice their ritual knowledge and the success with which they perform
their
cures are closely scrutinized by the communities where they live. As
figures
of authority in local medicine, the machi are
usually able to reinterpret
the
causes of an ineffective cure, or they can invoke a lack of faith on the part
of their
patients as capable of producing unwanted consequences.
As
modern ailments have proliferated with the sense of disorientation
caused
by the abrupt arrival of development to the more outlying areas of
percent
of the Mapuche population who have come to reside in urban areas
(p.96)
has intensified their sense of alienation, the machi
have occupied this
new
social landscape as savvy cultural mediators whose reputation as curers
has
increased both among the Mapuche and the foreign (Chilean) wingka.
The
machi have thus incorporated
foreign elements of both popular medical
practice
and biomedical knowledge as additional sources of power.
Bacigalupo
defines the traditional practices of the machi as
comprising
cures,
divination, ritual vengeance, love magic, and magic performed for good
Book Reviews 239
fortune.
Nowadays, the roles of the machi have
polarized them into two broad
types.
On one hand, there are those who occupy themselves exclusively with
curing
diseases, whether natural or spiritual, who legitimize themselves through
experiencing
a calling (a machi-kutran illness)
and who submit to a long period
of
apprenticeship. These are the machi who
inherit their spirits and become
repositories
of tradition. On the other hand, there are those who become
machi
through experiencing visions or after
surviving a catastrophe, often do
not
undergo a machi-kutran,
incorporate many elements of popular medicine,
and
eschew any formal apprenticeship. Bacigalupo shows
that the first type
of machi
hold great popularity and are highly
respected in their communities,
a fact
linked with their large number of supporters and the faith the latter
have in
their curers. The establishment of a tradition is therefore shown to be
linked
to a tightly knit support group, as is the case of machi
Nora and her
apprentices
Ana and Pamela. Such is also the case in the Christian style of
curing
adopted by machi Sergio,
who also initiated many other machi.
The
present-day machi of the
second type described by the author are
more prone
to accusations of witchcraft because their acceptance by their local
communities
or their own families is often a point of contention. Nevertheless,
even
though these machi are
more open to using wingka therapeutic
techniques,
that does
not make them less traditional. Such are the cases of machi
Jorge
and
Marta, both of whom effect cures by resorting to a traditional Mapuche
dualist
conception in which the cure can only be reestablished through ritual
vengeance,
that is by diverting evil back to the culprit that caused it. Moreover,
these
Machi are also able to obtain
supporters and preserve their relation with
a
faithful number of patients by personalizing their way of curing so as to
better
meet their patients’ needs. The author shows how the seven machi
introduced
in the book are highly individualistic and model their shamanic
practices
after their own experiences. This is not only true for machi
like
Marta
and Jorge, but also for machi like
Fresia, who comes to abandon her
practice
because her own individuality prevents her from conforming to the
customary
roles assumed by machi among
the Mapuche. Bacigalupo again
makes
an important point in arguing that these cases demonstrate how
ethnographies
centered on normative (ideal or typical) concepts of the person
fail to
take account of how individuals negotiate the terms of their own identities
in
respect to their specific social contexts and life histories.
La
Voz de Kultrun en la Modernidad is written in
accessible language and
the
stories of the machi are
often compelling, or at least intriguing enough to
hold their
grip on both the scholarly and lay reader. The book should quickly
appear
in English translation, perhaps with a glossary to aid in the identification
of the
native Mapuche terms, and with a more generous size format for the
wonderful
and equally informative photographs the author has added to her
comprehensive
ethnographic endeavor.