On Chile rivers, Native spirituality and development clash

MELIPEUCO, Chile (AP) — Mist suddenly arose from the Truful Truful River as it flowed below the snow-covered Llaima volcano, and Victor Curin smiled at the sun-dappled water spray.

A leader in one of the Indigenous communities by the river’s shores in the Chilean Andes, Curin took it as a sign that the waterfall’s ngen — its owner and protector spirit — approved of his visit and prayer that mid-July morning.

“Nature always tells you something, always answers,” said Curin, who works as a park ranger in Conguillio National Park, at the river’s headwaters. “Human beings feel superior to the space where they go, but for us Mapuche, I belong to the earth, the earth doesn’t belong to me.”

In the worldview of the Mapuche, Chile’s largest Indigenous group and more than 10% of its population, a pristine river is home to a spiritual force to revere, not a natural resource to exploit.

That has led many Mapuche across Chile’s water-rich south to fight hydroelectric plants and other projects they see as desecrating nature and depriving Indigenous communities of essential energies that keep them from getting sick.

“Being part of nature, we cannot destroy part of ourselves,” said Lientur Ayenao, a machi or healer and spiritual guide who draws water from the Truful Truful for his ceremonies. “You have to keep the balance, and this is broken when one intervenes in natural spaces for a selfish purpose.”

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