Traditional music and dance
Music and dance are essential components of Mapuche daily life. They enable them to express fear or joy, serve as a medium for thanking divinities or expressing erotic desire, a promise of war, celebrating a birth, a death or a good harvest. The Mapuche have melodies for working, sleeping, burying the dead or playing together. Some are only played while dancing during special ceremonies(Machitún, Lepún and Nguillatún, for example). Most Mapuche music is religious: people sing and dance to honor Ngenechén, the absolute deity. The instrumentation is fairly elementary, featuring vocals, percussion and the trutruca, a kind of trumpet made from coligüe cane (a native bamboo) ending in a horn, with a low, strident sound. A key feature of Mapuche music is the use of the kultrún, a ceremonial drum representing the community's cosmovision, material and immaterial elements, symbolic structure and the four divisions of the earth's platform oriented according to the four cardinal points(Meli Witran Mapu). Mapuche belief has it that the "witch"(machi) transmits her voice and energy to the kultrún, with whom she identifies. Other traditional musical instruments include the pifilka, a single-hole, high-pitched whistle (representing the ñandu calling his offspring), the kaskawilla, a bronze instrument, and the piloilo (made of stone or bone), which unlike the pifilka has several holes.
In Argentine Patagonia, efforts are being made to preserve this indigenous heritage, which the country's governmental authorities have done everything in their power to suppress. Thanks to this preservation effort, native songs and dances such as loncomeo, cordillerana, chorrillero and kaani can still be heard and seen. Part of Tehuelche-Mapuche folklore, loncomeo is performed exclusively by men, to the sound of the kultrún, usually during ngillatún (the main Mapuche spiritual ceremony). Traditional loncomeo has given rise to a modern form of folk music, played by great Patagonian composers such as Marcelo Berbel. The Cordillerana is a gentle, harmonious song, now played on guitar. A blend of kaani and milonga with syncopated melodies and nostalgic tunes, the chorrillera (or chorrillero) explicitly evokes indigenous tonalities; finally, the kaani is a men's dance performed in groups of four and orchestrated with percussion and wind instruments. Mapuche music as a whole can be found in the compositions of Rubén Patagonia (a native of Comodoro Rivadavia), icon and champion of Patagonian folk music.
In Chiloé, Spanish folklore has been well preserved, and it's easy to hear pericona, pasacalles, vals chilote or trastasera... The former is one of the most popular dances among Chilotes. With probable Argentine origins, it is performed in couples, handkerchiefs in hand. Widespread throughout the Spanish-speaking world, pasacalle originated in Spain in the early 17th century. The chilote waltz is, as its name suggests, a local variant of the waltz, with more pronounced rhythms and jumps. Also Argentinian, the trastasera is an easy-to-perform dance whose steps are indicated in the lyrics of the song.
In Argentina, these folk dances and music can be seen and heard during the Mapuche New Year. Held between June 21 and 24 (on the shortest day of the year), this is the occasion for communities to organize large-scale festivities punctuated by all kinds of folkloric and traditional activities. On the Chilean side, it's during the Fiestas Patrias, the most important festival (celebrating Independence Day), that you can admire folklore from all over the country. For two days, Chile puts the spotlight on its culture and traditions, the mainstays of its identity. Dances, folk songs and gastronomy are the order of the day.
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.
