Mapuche Folk Music

Mapuche folk music is the traditional music of the Mapuche people of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina: ritual and social song in Mapudungun led by the machi's kultrún drum, the long trutruca horn, pifilka flutes and cascahuillas bells. Its core is the ül, sung poetry carrying genealogy, prayer and news, performed at ceremonies such as the machitún healing rite and the nguillatún fertility prayer. Long documented mainly by ethnographers, it reached record through singers such as *Beatriz Pichi Malen*, whose albums of ancient Mapuche song anchor a small revival scene of Mapuche folk performers.