Ngillatun

Also Known As: Mapudungun ngillatun, “to request”; also written nguillatún, ngillatún and guillatún; kamarikun in Argentina, shortened there to kamaruko or camaruco; regionally rewetun and llellipun, with kawin for the wider celebration around it
Region/Culture: South America
Mythos: Mapuche Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Ceremonies and Rites
Mythical Attributes: For as long as it lasts, the ground gathers a scattered people into a single congregation and carries their thanks and their requests east to Ngenechen from a field deliberately left open on that side.
Role in Mythos: It is the central act of Mapuche religious life, the occasion on which prayer, sacrifice and dance are offered at a common altar and the relation between people and Ngenechen is renewed.
Relation to Humans: It is made wholly by human hands and cannot begin until the decision to hold it has travelled by messenger around every household of the congregation. Anyone who attends as an invited guest is obliged to host the next one, so nobody goes home without a debt.

Before first light the field is quiet enough to hear the sea. Then a whistle sounds, one hard wooden note repeated on a beat that never shifts, and a second answers it a fraction late, and underneath them a drum starts. The whistles are pifilka, cut from wood, and the pulse they lock into with the kultrún will not stop for the next three days.

Ngillatun means to request. It is an ordinary verb, the one you would use about asking a neighbour for anything at all, and it is used almost exclusively for this: the great communal ceremony at which Mapuche families thank Ngenechen for what has come and ask for what has not. Rain, or an end to rain. A harvest. The volcano quiet for another year. Sickness turned away from the houses.

There is no single form of it. The ritual complex runs from the Pacific coast of southern Chile across the cordillera to the Argentine pampas, and it changes as it goes, starting with what it is called. In Argentina it is more often kamarikun, worn down in Río Negro and Chubut to kamaruko. In Chile people also say rewetun, llellipun, or simply kawin, celebration. Near Temuco several thousand people may attend. In the Pewenche settlements high in the cordillera there may be fewer than thirty. In some congregations the machi is the officiant at the centre of everything; in others the machi is absent, and in some places barred from the ritual ground altogether. The choyke pürün, the dance of the rhea, is the heart of the ceremony in one district and completely unknown in the next.

Four things hold everywhere. The ceremony is always described by the people holding it as thanks directed to Ngenechen. That thanks is always spoken by trained orators rather than by whoever feels moved. There is always a sacrifice, and it always happens at the altar in the middle. And the space around that altar is always cleaned by awün, riders circling it, or walkers where there are no horses.

The altar is a rewe, a canelo trunk with steps cut into it, stripped and set upright in the ground. Canelo, foye, is the sacred tree, and in Mapuche understanding it stands on the axis that joins the sky world above, the world people live in, and the world underneath. Green branches of it are planted around the shaft and used to fling liquid offerings into the air. The word rewe does more work than that, though. It is also the ritual field itself, and it is the congregation, the households whose land lies inside a particular stretch of country and who hold the ceremony together. Each such congregation is twinned with a neighbouring one, and they take turns. This year Panku hosts and Weycha comes as mütrüm, the called ones, obliged to attend. Next year the obligation reverses. Everyone else who turns up, and many do, is koye, an uninvited guest, and welcome.

It does not begin with a date. It begins with what people call the birth of the word. Two senior ngenpin, whose title means master of the word, wait on signs that the time has come: dreams, visions, and the bellowing of a great black bull heard out of a heavy sea fog. When the word is born, one ngenpin carries it southeast and the other carries it north, passing it to subordinate masters of the word who are often the lonko, the heads of extended families. The actual carrying is usually done by a werken, a messenger, generally a man’s eldest son. The two paths run around the whole territory of the congregation until they meet at its easternmost point, and the circle closes. What has been transmitted is not information. Everybody already knew the date; it is the same every year. What has been transmitted is that the thing is now real.

On the field itself, most of the daylight goes on hospitality. A man walks from his own shelter to a guest’s, greets him, hands him a plate of meat that he calls a sacrifice, and walks away again, having said almost nothing and having established everything. Next year the plate comes back the other way.

The killing is not hidden and not hurried. Pascual Coña, a coastal cacique whose account was written down in the 1920s, described the head cacique slaughtering two steers, four sheep, a horse and a pig, with every host household killing an animal of its own. Then the shout goes up, a long drawn Oooo, and a man puts his fingers into the vessel of blood and flicks it into the air. Here you are, father, blue sky, he says. You have raised us. Give us abundance, and every kind of fruit of the earth. Send us sun and rain again. My lambs are asking me. The blood is shared out among the guests.

After that they dance. The ngenpin calls it: let the flute play, let the machi beat the drum, dance for our rewe. The ring turns around the altar and the requests are made again inside the dancing, the same requests that went up with the blood. Two men carry flags through it, one white and one black. At the end the ngenpin turns to the visitors and tells them that the celebration has happened, that they were part of it, and that the next one is theirs to hold.

The power of the ceremony is that it makes a society appear where the rest of the year there is none visible. Mapuche families live scattered across their own land in separate homesteads, famously reluctant to speak for one another or take orders from anyone. Only at ngillatun do they stand together as a body, and outside observers noticed the effect early. The colonial chroniclers could not agree whether they were watching devil worship or some strange advance instalment of Christianity, but none of them missed that this was how a people with no kings coordinated well enough to beat Spanish armies and stay independent for another three hundred years.

Its limits are the limits of anything held in common. No individual can call one, however powerful or however desperate; the word has to be born, and it has to complete its circuit. The ngenpin who presides has no authority to command anybody and cannot compel attendance. The congregation is defined by where people live, so land taken, sold or fenced eats directly into the ceremony that stands on it. And it costs. The animals, the flour, the muday brewed for weeks beforehand, the days of work not done in the fields. That has always been the point. A request made cheaply would not be worth answering.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a ngillatun?

Ngillatun is the principal communal religious ceremony of the Mapuche people of southern Chile and Argentina. Held over roughly two to four days, it brings neighbouring communities together to thank the supreme deity Ngenechen for past providence and to request continued providence, usually for rain, harvests, health, or protection from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The word itself simply means “to request.”

What happens during a ngillatun?

Families gather at a prepared open field with a stepped canelo trunk, the rewe, planted at its centre. Trained orators called ngenpin lead the prayers, animals are sacrificed at the altar and their blood flung toward the sky and shared among the guests, riders circle the altar in purifying circuits known as awün, and people dance around the rewe to whistles and the machi’s drum. Between the ceremonial stages, host families feed and drink with their guests in brush shelters around the edge of the field.

Who leads the ngillatun?

The ngenpin, whose title means “master of the word,” presides over the ritual and speaks the prayers. In some communities the machi, the shaman, is the central officiant alongside them; in others the machi has no role at all and may be kept off the ceremonial ground entirely. Lonko, the heads of extended families, act as subordinate masters of the word and carry the decision to hold the ceremony around the congregation.

Is the ngillatun the same as the kamaruko?

Yes. Kamarikun is the usual name for the ceremony among Mapuche communities in Argentina, shortened in Río Negro and Chubut to kamaruko or camaruco, while ngillatun is the commonest term in Chile. Other regional names include rewetun and llellipun. The forms differ considerably from place to place, but participants everywhere describe the ceremony as the same act directed to Ngenechen.

How often is a ngillatun held?

It varies by community. Some congregations hold one every year, others every two, three or four, with pairs of neighbouring congregations often alternating as hosts and obliged guests so that each takes its turn. An extraordinary ngillatun can also be called in response to a disaster such as a drought, a flood, an epidemic or an eruption.