Traditional music and dance
Music and dance are essential components of daily life among the Mapuche. They allow them to express fear or joy, serve as a medium to thank the deities or to manifest an erotic desire, a promise of war, celebrate a birth, a death, a good harvest. The Mapuche have melodies for working, sleeping, burying the dead or playing together. Some are only played while dancing during particular ceremonies (Machitún, Lepún and Nguillatún, for example). Mapuche music is most often religious: people sing and dance to honour Ngenechén, the absolute divinité́. The instrumentation is quite elementary, with voices, percussion and the trutruca, a kind of trumpet made of coligüe cane (a native bamboo) ending in a horn, with a deep and strident sound. Mapuche music is characterized in particular by the use of the kultrún, a ceremonial drum; it represents the cosmovision of the community, the material and immaterial elements, the symbolic structure, the four divisions of the earth's platform oriented according to the four cardinal points (Meli Witran Mapu). The Mapuche belief says that the "witch" (machi) transmits her voice and energy to the kultrún, with which she identifies herself. Other traditional musical instruments are the pifilka, a whistle with a single orifice, with a very high sound (it represents the ñandu calling its offspring), the kaskawilla, a bronze instrument, and the piloilo (made of stone or bone), which has several holes unlike the pifilka
.In Argentine Patagonia, attempts are being made to conserve as best they can this indigenous heritage, which the country's government authorities have done everything possible to suppress. Thanks to this preservation effort, we still hear and see indigenous songs and dances such as the loncomeo, cordillerana, chorrillero or kaani. The loncomeo, a music and dance of Tehuelche-Mapuche folklore, is practiced exclusively among men to the sound of the kultrún, usually during the ngillatún (the main Mapuche spiritual ceremony). From the traditional loncomeo has been extracted a form of modern folk music, played by great Patagonian composers such as Marcelo Berbel. As for the Cordillerana, it is a soft and harmonious song, now played on the guitar. A mixture of kaani and milonga with syncopated melodies and nostalgic tunes, the chorrillera (or chorrillero) explicitly evokes indigenous tones; finally, the kaani
is a men's dance performed in groups of four and orchestrated with percussion and wind instruments. Mapuche music is found in its entirety in the compositions of Rubén Patagonia (a native of Comodoro Rivadavia), an icon and singer of Patagonian folk music.In Chiloé, the Spanish folklore has been well preserved and one can easily hear pericona, pasacalles, waltz chilote or trastasera... The first is one of the most popular dances among the Chilotes. With probable Argentinean origins, it is performed in pairs, handkerchiefs in hand. Widespread throughout the Spanish-speaking world, the pasacalle
originated in Spain and dates back to the beginning of the 17th century. The Chilote waltz is, as its name suggests, a local variant of the waltz, with more marked rhythms and jumps. Also Argentinean, the trastasera is an easy to perform dance whose steps are indicated in the lyrics of the song. In Argentina you can see and hear this folk music and dance during the Mapuche New Year. Held between the 21st and 24th of June (the shortest day of the year), it is an opportunity for communities to organise large festivities punctuated by all sorts of folklore and traditional activities. On the Chilean side, it is during the Fiestas Patrias, the most important festival (celebrating Independence Day) that one can admire the folklore of the whole country. During two days, Chile highlights its culture and traditions, the main lines of its identity. Dances, folkloric songs and gastronomy are always present.Popular music
While both Argentina and Chile have produced great waves of songs, it's Chilean Patagonia that has produced one of the genre's greatest stars: Patricio Manns. Singer, musician, poet and novelist born in the Bío Bío region (north of Araucania), Manns is today a beloved figure throughout Latin America. A journalist in the 1960s, he lived in the Chilean capital before fleeing following Pinochet's coup d'état. He would not return until the 1990s, after 20 years in exile. Modern and revolutionary, the singer is often considered the immediate heir to Violeta Parra - the country's great (committed) singer. He was one of the founders of the "Nueva Cancion Chilena", a social music movement that developed in the 1960s and carried with it the demands of its time (Argentina had a similar movement called "Nuevo Cancionero" at the same time). Patricio Manns has written novels, essays, poetry and plays, for which he has won several awards in France. His novel Cavalier seul evokes the turbulent life of gold prospector Julius Popper, who established a veritable authoritarian regime in Tierra del Fuego. An interesting read, all the more so when read in conjunction with a visit to the region.
In Patagonia, two good places to hear local folk and/or chanson à texte are En El Clavo in Valdivia (an original and festive address in town) and, on the Argentine side, Naupa, in Ushuaia, where you can also hear quite a bit of tango.
La Cumbia
Although not a Patagonian tradition at all, cumbia is nevertheless one of the most popular forms of music in Argentina and Chile. Whether served on its own or mixed with reggaeton, techno or rock, it can be heard in cabs, stores, street corners or at any party. Originally from Colombia, cumbia was born from the fusion of black (for the rhythm) and Indian (for the melody) cultures, and has a rhythmic signature, all off-beat, that is instantly recognizable.
In Argentina, the style enjoyed its first success in the 1960s with hits by Colombian groups such as Los Wawancó and Cuarteto Imperial. Cumbia, the popular genre par excellence here, evolved in the early 2000s into the more aggressive cumbia villera (translated as "shantytown cumbia"), with lyrics about street life, drugs and crime, and lots of synthesizers and sound effects. It was also in Buenos Aires that the genre found a new lease of life, being mixed with electronica - becoming nueva cumbia - in the hands of Zizek Club and ZZK Records. In Chile, the genre also burst onto the scene in the 1960s. Right from the start, the country developed its own style of cumbia, called "cumbia sonora" or (Chilean cumbia), adding piano and brass and speeding up the rhythm. Leading Chilean cumbia groups include Orquesta Huambaly Sonora Palacios and Los Vikings. In Araucania, you can dance to cumbia at Temuco's OK Club, with its lively, youthful atmosphere. In Valdivia, the Carrê Social Club also offers a wide range of cumbia in all its forms, and in Chiloé, the Club Fama in Ancud is one of the perfect places to learn to dance cumbia or bachata.
