(1).- These are understood to be those who express themselves by means of the typical codes of their culture. Currently many are of mixed blood, with a greater or smaller proportion of European blood.
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(2) "On the day appointed for the "rucan" [beginning of the construction of the ruka], the guests arrive early and begin the work with enthusiasm,...They use mattocks and spades to dig holes of a suitable size for placing the two or three center poles. Several of them lift the poles together, wedge the buried part with stones, and leave them standing straight and at the same height. They measure the length and width of the room with sticks of coligue [bamboo] and use a stick or shovel to trace the perimeter lines on the soil. Similarly, they mark the location of the añañel, or lateral poles. They dig the holes in the places marked, set the poles taking care to ensure that all are of the same height, align them, and wedge their bases with stones and compressed dirt. They place the supports on the forked heads of the poles, several of them lift the ridge board and set it on the center poles. They place the tares obliquely so that the thinner end rests on the ridge board, and the thicker end on the supports. They tie them firmly with ropes, or with a bundle of voqui, and this keeps them the same distance from each other and prevents them from slipping. In two or three hours, the fifteen or twenty workers have raised the frame, which is heavier work than the rest of the construction. They lay the huimeill, branches of reñi (chusques commingii) horizontally on top of the tares, in groups of two or three tied together with mau, ropes of jonquil also known as Zef or braids, trarili or ties, mequef or bindings.
While strapping lads distribute and tie the huimeill to the ridge board, others begin to roof or line the sides with bundles of reeds. They lay the bundles in rows and juxtaposed along the sides starting from the bottom, and at each end they tie each one to the huimeill with mau or voqui. The second row placed higher up covers half of the previous row and completely covers the ties. The third also partially covers the second, and so on successively.
Less experienced helpers stay on the ground to lift up the bundles of reeds to those on the roof. These organize them and tie them using ropes of reme strung with bamboo needles, pulled from inside by youths who hang from the tares against the huenuruca. Those on the inside pass the needles to the outside again, and those outside pull strongly on the rope to compress the layer of reeds.
So as not to get in each others way, the workers spread out on the sides and at the ends of the room. Work progresses quickly accompanied by shouted commands and the joyful cries of all involved.". Joseph, H. Claude, La Vivienda Mapuche, 1° edición, Santiago-Chile, Ediciones Universidad de Chile, s.f., page 24.
They take one or two weeks to make the frame and often leave it for a season before roofing; traditionally straw is used. The old ruka had a rectangular base, vertical walls to a height of about one or two meters, and a flat, more or less sloping, roof. In general, they have one or two entrances and no windows.
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(3) Joseph, H. Claude, Op. Cit.,page 34.
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(4) Thus, for example, the ancients used stone a lot as a raw material for making their utensils, before learning to work metals. They still use it to make the cusi and the ñumcusi; the former is a flat, rectangular or round shaped stone, forty or fifty centimeters long, by thirty to forty centimeters wide and ten to fifteen centimeters deep, used for grinding corn, barley, wheat. The ñumcusi is a smaller, longer, cylindrically shaped stone with at least one flat face which can slide easily over the surface of the cusi.
In pottery, one can often see parts of spoons and small stones being used for polishing.
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(5) Possession and use of the ketru metawe "... not only symbolizes the various crises of community life - separation and building of new relationships within the community [patrilocal], whether the departure of a daughter or sister, or the incorporation of a woman from outside. As has been pointed out, this crisis of the community is controlled in the nguillatun, where the activities of "giving" and "taking" wives take place. During the nguillatun, the married woman places her jug at the base of the rewe, of the sacred pole located in the center of the ritual area and in sight of all participants. The act may be a symbolic gesture by the female participants who have performed the role of "condition of married woman" and maternity.
The machi is a special case; she is the only woman who can own more than one duck jug and she distributes them. The machi often marries outside the marriage system, and remains in her patrilocal residential unit whether married or not. Matrilocal residence is practiced when she accepts a man from another lineage as her husband. This is a reverse order to that of other married women. By remaining in her own residential unit, the machi resides in the opposite direction to the other women; similarly, her husband resides in the opposite direction to the other men, since he does not live in his own community.
This ordering explains why the machi can own more than one duck jug and why she shows two ketru metawe in religious-social events. As a married woman, she is entitled to one duck jug. Her husband is a married individual. This individual status also requires a jug, but being a man he cannot own one and, thus, the second jug is handed on to the female consort. This type of dual presentation of the jugs of a machi in the nguillatun is clearly different to the other female elements of the group, because the position of machi resides in religious power". Dillehay, Tom D.; Gordon, Américo, "El Simbolismo en el Ornitomorfismo Mapuche. La Mujer Casada y el Ketru Metawe", in: Actas del VII Congreso de Arqueología, Santiago-Chile, Ediciones Kultrung, 1977, pages 311-312.
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(6) One of these forms is the ketru metawe or duck jug, of which there are references as early as the VII to X centuries A.D., as can be seen in the excavations made in Pitrén, south of Chile. Other forms tell of memories from before the arrival of the Spaniards in the XV century, together with some typical elements of that culture.
Considering that all culture is dynamic, creations vary over time. The mapuches as a whole tried not to absorb the cultural processes which took place after colonization, and tried to preserve and make objects born in the heart of their own culture. In spite of this, new influences had an impact, as can be seen in the mapuches way of dress, especially of the men who took to wearing european clothes more than the women.
The mapuche culture bequeathed the poncho, as well as other fashions, to the Creoles, and then to the Chileans. In addition to cultural habits which have still not been studied in depth.
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(7) Women traditionally have made pottery, textiles, and basketry. Men have worked leather, wood, stone, horn, and silver. Basketry work has been shared by both sexes.
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(8) The symbolic complexity of this object, as of others, some already mentioned, is typical of a culture which, as is underlying in what has been said, and as has been shown in the mapuches constant struggle to preserve it, despite the globalization implanted by modernity, which has intensified with the advent of post-modernity, has its own identity and values its cultural and natural heritage.
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