Transcribed Prologue, editing and notes by Dr. Rudolf Lenz Full title: “Vida y costumbres de los indígenas araucanos de la segunda mitad del Siglo XIX” Background The text is the autobiography of Chief (Lonco) Pascual Coña, as related to the Capuchin priest Ernst Wilhelm Moesbach. By the time these memories were compiled (mid-1920s), Coña was an older man, in his 70s or 80s, so much of the content relates to the second half of the 19th century. Mösbach gathered the material over the course of four years and many visits to the Chief’s home, near Lake Budi, in the Lafkenche (Coastal) Mapuche territories. Due to its extension and early first-person account of Mapuche life and customs, it is an invaluable part of the people and the language’s heritage.

Transcribed This is a collection of family histories compiled by Tomás Guevara: “Las últimas familias i costumbres araucanas”, written in collaboration with a number of mapuche consultants, most important of which was probably Manuel Manquilef, who also published ethnographic work independently. Tagged Text (Web) PDF Text (Image Scans)

Transcribed At the time of publication (1911), Tomás de Guevara was head teacher at Temuco’s main secondary school (Liceo de Temuco). He had long had an interest in Mapuche folklore and ethnography, as many of his students came from the fairly new reservations (reducciones) established in the late 19th century. As with his later texts, much of the compilation and translation of material was actually the work of his collaborator, Manuel Manquilef, a native speaker of Mapudungun and one of the first Mapuche teachers at the school. For some of the stories and proverbs in this volume, he also relied on two further Mapudungun speakers: Lorenzo Coliman and Felipe Reyes.

Transcribed This is one of the most substantial, careful collections of fairly naturalistic Mapudungun from the turn of the century. It was compiled by Fr. Félix de Augusta and Fr. Sigifredo de Fraunhaeusl, both Bavarian Capuchin priests. For the most part, the texts are on Mapuche-specific topics and have named informants, who were well known by the missionaries. The texts collected by Augusta are mostly from the Lafkenche region near Lake Budi, while the texts collected by Fraunhaeusl are from the Panguipulli area, both broadly within the Central Mapudungun dialect continuum.

Partially Transcribed The last and most complete of the missionary grammars of Mapudungun is that of the Bavarian Felix José de Augusta. Born in the city of Augsburg in 1860 as August Stephan Kathan, he studied medicine in Würzburg and then in Munich, where he obtained his doctorate. In 1887 he was accepted into the Capuchin order in Laufen, taking the name of Felix Joseph which was followed up by the name of his place of origin: von Augsburg. In 1890 he was ordained, and by late 1895 had joined the first mission of Bavarian Franciscans to the region of Araucanía.

Transcribed This set of early seventeenth-century sermons was composed by Fr. Luis de Valdiva (1560–1621) , one of the first Spanish Jesuits assigned to Chile. Valdivia played a cruical role in the development of Spanish Crown’s ‘defensive war’ policy towards the Mapuche, which suspended direct attacks on native groups and emphasised acculturation. The sermons are intended as a programatic introduction to Christian faith, with the express intent of converting the Mapuche and having them renounce their traditional beliefs and religious practices. This was a key part of Valdivia’s strategy for pacifying the region through conversion rather than — thus far unsuccessful — belicose confrontation.