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Two Mapuche-Huilliche Poems from Chile

2022; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 96; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2022.0216

1945-8134

Jaime Huenún Villa, Cynthia Steele,

Cultural and Social Studies in Latin America

Two Mapuche-Huilliche Poems from Chile Jaime Huenún Villa (bio) Translated by Cynthia Steele (bio) Ül of Catrileo Matías Catrileo Quezada was killed at point-blank range on January 3, 2008, in the village of Yeupeco, commune of Vilcún, region of La Araucanía. The twenty-two-year-old activist was participating in a peaceful takeover of land when he was shot by policeman Walter Ramírez, who was carrying a nine-millimeter Uzi submachine gun. We won’t turn over the body, no:this is the death they have left us,the bullets that sliced through the dawnon Matías Catrileo’s riverin Vilcún. But Llaima Volcano is burning for youand the ashes of your hidden eyesare writing in the snowthe rage and the mysteryof a people with no more forests or arms,surrounded by tanks and tear-gas bombs,seated at the bench of the Royal Indian Courtof modernity. Let night’s ferrymen comeflying over the waterand the blue maidenswho heal the warrior’s woundswith their voices. We won’t turn over the bodyto the judge’s forensics,nor to the cameras that can never havetheir fill of the dead. We won’t turn over the body, saythe ambushed pumas of Vilcún,we are the tomb of Matías Catrileo,the grass of his bloodied hands,his parents’ river of justicethe deep roots of his lightin the yellow lands of Yeupeco. [End Page 48] Jaime Mendoza Collío Loses His Way and Sings in the Invisible Forests of Requém Pillán Jaime Mendoza Collío was killed by the Chilean police on August 12, 2009, when he was twenty-four years old. Requém Pillán, the community he came from, is located eighty-four kilometers to the northeast of the city of Temuco. Where does the thread of a long look come from?And the color of death in the ocean flowers? Yes, I was born dark like a scaraband dark I will die, under the light of the sun. The terrestrial machines barely nod to meas I search through my father’s feverish mud. Bones ringing out, moons circulatingover children fleeing from blue horseflies. Soon I will order the islands into existence,soon I will set out for the Land Up Above. And I’ll tell the wild river to dream within my bloodstream,and I’ll tell the red larch trees to light up the air. Now I’m climbing a path leading to the summit,to hidden forests where I revive and sing. Death on the cusp of dawn burns in the mountains,the light shatters the window like a wound. [End Page 49] Translations from the Spanish Translator’s note: Ül refers to a Mapuche or Mapudungun musical expression performed in a ritual or sacred context. Royal Indian Court is a colonial Spanish court with jurisdiction over Indians. Click for larger view View full resolution ART COURTESY OF MAPUCHE ARTIST EDUARDO RAPIMÁN MARÍN Jaime Huenún Villa Jaime Huenún Villa (b. 1967, Valdivia) is an award-winning Mapuche-Huilliche poet whose latest collection of poetry, Crónicas de la Nueva Esperanza/Chronicles of New Hope, is forthcoming from Lom Ediciones. He has received numerous awards, including the Pablo Neruda Prize (2003), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005), and the Chilean National Council on Arts and Culture’s Best Work of Literature 2013. He has also edited several anthologies of Mapuche and other Latin American Indigenous poetry. He works in the Ministry of the Cultures, Arts and Patrimony of Chile. Photo by Alvaro de la Fuente Farré Cynthia Steele Cynthia Steele is professor emerita of comparative literature at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her translations include Inés Arredondo, Underground Rivers and Other Stories (1996); José Emilio Pacheco, City of Memory and Other Poems (2001); and María Gudín, Open Sea (2018). They have also appeared in Chicago Review, Gulf Coast, Washington Square Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southern Review, and Agni, among others. Photo by Carolyn Cullen Copyright © 2022 World Literature Today