Araucanian Patri-Organization and the Omaha System

Abstract

T HE thesis of this paper is that Araucanian society has been patrilineally organized since the time of the Conquest, but that the appearance of the Omaha system is a very recent development and not fully representative of Araucanian society. It is concerned, therefore, with the development of Araucanian social organization under four sections: (1) brief review of two basic assumptions about the development of Araucanian kinship and social organization; (2) examination of historic kinship terminology and other data on social organization, in connection with these assumptions; (3) presentation of data obtained in the field in 1953, and other recent material on Araucanian kinship and social organization; and (4) an interpretation of the development of Araucanian social organization on the basis of historical material and the present pattern of distribution. For about three centuries the Araucanian Indians of Chile withstood the large-scale colonization of their native habitat, Araucania. These so-called fighting came to be known by the generic term which means, in their language, people of the land. During the period of Spanish colonization the Mapuche lived between the Bio-Bio River and an ill-defined boundary north of the town of Valdivia, in a rather thickly forested area which lies between the Andes and the Pacific. North of the Bio-Bio River lived the Picunche Indians, who were closely related to the Mapuche and were part of the over-all Araucanian group. From the environs of Valdivia south to the Island of Chilo6, the more open country was inhabited by the Huilliche Araucanians or people of the south. These cultural subgroups shared a common language, Araucanian, the regional dialects of which were mutually intelligible. Today only the Mapuche remain as a large, easily definable ethnic group in southern Middle Chile. The Picunche were rapidly acculturated during the early colonial period. The Huilliche, for the most part, have been absorbed into the mestizo population between the southern limits of Araucania and the Island of Chilo6. Perhaps the most ambitious thesis dealing with the evolution of Araucanian society was presented by Ricardo E. Latcham (1924), who drew heavily on colonial documents for supplementation to field work he conducted among the Mapuche in Cautin Province, the heart of Araucania. The premises upon Which Latcham based his fundamental arguments in favor of matrilineal organization do not bear close scrutiny. Nevertheless, he stands out with Guevara Silva as one of the most assiduous students of Araucanian culture who wrote in the early decades of the twentieth century. American anthropologists have recently shown interest in exploring histor-