From secrecy to public performance: The political uses of Mapudungun

Book Chapter

Summary *

This paper focuses on a particular Mapuche public performance, the "Stature of the Lof Ñorkinko", a document presented to the Argentine National Institute for Indigenous Affairs by the lof (community in Mapuche language) as a petition for legal recognition as a preexisting people. Through the analysis of this document I will explore the discursive and meta-discursive construction of new social stratgias in the relationship between aboriginal peoples and Argentine national society. I am especially concerned with the use of written Mapudungun (and Spanish) as a means of indexing language and culture in performance and orienting the audience´s interpretation in accordance with the addresser´s goals. Such goals are both rhetorical (in the classic meaning) and political, since the discourse ins sturctured and shaped to claim and exercise Mapuche human (now constitutional) rights. Information provided by the agent in SIGEVA