Important Mapuche meeting on health and medicine based on ancestral knowledge

“Wvnen Xawvn, tayiñ Bawehtuwvn”

At a crucial moment for the health of humanity where the response given by the pharmaceutical market was to place life and health as a commodity in the hands of multinationals, the Mapuche nation people propose a biocultural system of care for all lives that allows us to defend our physical and spiritual balance in territories abandoned by public health.

We share the document that contains the Positioning and Demands that were debated during two intense days by the different lawenzugu authorities:

Positions and demands

Gathered in “Wvnen Xawvn, tayiñ Bawehtuwvn” in Kiñel Mapu Ragiñce Kimvn, City of Zapala on March 25, 26 and 27, 2022, we began our gvlamtuwvn with a Wixaxipan to ask that pu Gen Mapu ka pu fvtakeceyem us guide and accompany in this first meeting whose main objective is to share processes, experiences and realities of the Mapuche Health System in the provinces of Neuquén and Río Negro: Health Team “Ruka Lawen” Lof Millalonko Ranquehue, Lof Maliqueo, Lof Wiritray, Lof Henchupan (Black River). “Pu llankan” Health Team of Lof Curruhuinca (Kiñel Mapu Wijice); Health Team “Bawehtuwvn Zugu” Lof Puel Pvjv; “Bawehtuwvn” Lof Newen Mapu. “Pu Xokince Bawehtucefe”: Lof Campo Maripe, lof Fvta Xayen and Lof Xem Kimvn (Kiñel Mapu Xawvnko). Lof Kinxikew, Lof Paicil Antriao (Kiñel Mapu Lafkence).

As a result of an important debate for three days and with the fundamental contributions of Maci Victor Caniullan Coliñir who gave us his kimvn and experience in his long career both in Gulu Mapu and Puel Mapu, we issue this position that contains the main lines of work, agreements and urgent objectives related to the support, development and projection of the Mapuce Bawehtuwvn- Mapuche Health System.

This meeting gave rise to situating ourselves in the current context of Mapuche health and its relationship with the historical processes that stripped, overwhelmed and weakened it, such as the genocides committed by the Argentine and Chilean states, imposing borders and medical, educational, religious, legal and political, alien to the pre-existing peoples, particularly the Mapuche Nation People. In Puel Mapu this was further deepened by the total elimination of our highest medical-spiritual authorities pu Maci in what was the military campaign misnamed Conquest of the Desert. However, we supported, protected and projected our knowledge and practices of our health model within each Lofce, in each territorial space where we were confined and from where we rose once more and reorganized ourselves according to mapuce kimvn/ancestral knowledge.

We analyze how the “pandemic” unleashed by the circulation of covid 19 throughout the world subjects us once once more to a wigka disease like the coronavirus that unfolds simultaneously with the extractivist territorial advance, just as it happened in periods of conquest and colonization. The continuity of these events occurs in the context of the loss of our autonomy and self-determination in relation to community territories, since we currently face a series of problems that prevent the comprehensive development of the Mapuce Health System due to the permanent threat to the sources of water, which we conceive of itself as baweh.

Medicinal plants and territories are also in danger due to pollution, water crisis, fires, destruction and reduction of forests, deforestation, plantation of exotics. All this is aggravated by the delay in the implementation of the indigenous territorial survey. We say then that this situation further evidenced social and cultural inequalities, but also as a People we reaffirm ourselves in our own kimvn, from which we conceive health in an integral way. The natural environment where one lives, the relationship of human beings with space, with air, with water, etc., is taken into account. For the Mapuce People, health is related to the balance-imbalance in the different levels of people’s lives.

The Mapuce health system contemplates and attends to the spiritual, emotional, mental and physical plane; This conception is directly related to the conditions of the territorial environment in which we live, with behaviors and way of life. And in this sense, we believe that disease cycles cannot be thought of as casual, supernatural events or the product of divine interventions. But as derivatives of human actions and decisions that are detrimental to other lives and compromise well-being or kvme felen. And regarding what worries us the most at the moment, which are the restrictions on the free movement of our highest medical authorities in Argentine-Chilean customs, pu maci, zugumacife, their healing instruments, medicines prepared or to be prepared, which is still aggravated more for the closing of the borders, we resolved in this xawvn:

1. To demand that the national and provincial governments advance on a protocol for the free movement of our Mapuce medical authorities in Argentine-Chilean customs, which accompany organizational processes for the exercise of Mapuce medicine in Puel Mapu through the health teams that we come from. working autonomously and interculturally in different territories of the provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén.
2. We are an organized people and we use the channels of dialogue to solve the problems that affect us and for this reason we propose the need to generate instances of agreements with the state authorities (Ministries of Health, Customs, National Parks-Comanejo, etc.), through our representative authorities.
3. We promise to continue protecting our territories (mallines, menoko / wetlands and swamps with many medicinal herbs), medicinal plants, the different kinds of land, stones and waters (rag / clay, xufken / land, pebe / mud, kura /stones, lewfv/rivers, xayenko/waterfalls, wvfko/springs) that exist in them since they are vital for the Kvme Felen (good living, well-being) of all people and the biodiversity of our az mapu/ Territorial identities. If our territory is sick kom pu ce, so are the people.
4. We set out to move forward with an intra-community protocol to protect the entire Mapuce health system and thus avoid the folklorization, syncretism and misuse of Bawehtuwvn. We also have a responsibility to protect the intellectual property rights of our knowledge and thus prevent the piracy of our natural medicine.
5. We will also advance in community territorial agreements for exchanges of various types of baweh that exist in each Kiñel Mapu / territorial identity. Above all, within the framework of the Co-management between the Mapuce People and the Nahuel Huapi and Lanin National Parks.
6. We intend to deepen our xawvn, convene other ongoing experiences to strengthen ourselves and unify criteria through self-training from the mapuce kimvn and the bawehtuwvn zugu.
7. We demand that the Territorial Survey, Law 26160, be carried out, understanding that its fulfillment will also guarantee the projection of the Bawehtuwvn.
8. We urgently demand, in the context of the pandemic and climate change, that the health teams that are developing a concrete contribution to the health of our People and their life projects in community territories, be respected and taken into account when preparing public policies in favor of the projection of an ancestral health model that not only benefits pu mapuce. Taking into account also that an intercultural hospital is projected in Pewenche Territory, Neuquén.

For the fulfillment of all the objectives that we set ourselves, we rely on the provincial and national Constitutions and international treaties, among which is Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which establishes in its article 25: “Governments shall ensure that adequate health services are made available to the peoples concerned or provide such peoples with the means to enable them to organize and provide such services under their own responsibility and control, in order that they may enjoy the highest attainable standard. of physical and mental health”.

Likewise, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples establishes in its art. 24: “Indigenous peoples have the right to their own traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their medicinal plants, animals and minerals of vital interest. Indigenous persons also have the right of access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services. The States shall take the necessary measures to progressively make this right fully effective.”

And taking into account that the territory of the Mapuce People is today divided by the borders of the States of Chile and Argentina, the UN declaration establishes in its Article 36: “Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relationships and cooperation, including activities of a spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social nature, with their own members, as well as with other peoples, across borders. States, in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples, shall adopt effective measures to facilitate the exercise and ensure the application of this right.

Other agreements such as the 8J on Biological Diversity, the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean or the Escazú Agreement, also protect our principles of relationship with Waj Mapu of respect and consideration of Ixofij Mogen

For a free transit of our Mapuce medical system, for the exercise and projection of our feyentun and mapuce kimvn, for the protection of ixofij mogen in Waj Mapu. Marici Wew!