A bunch of freshly picked yellow flowers at the feet of the statues is the only sign of life. Such beliefs seem out of place, when just a few miles down the road one can find McDonald's, Internet cafes and shopping malls. But the 1.29 million Mapuche people of Chile and Argentina have been left in the fog. Ways of the past are passed down from generation to generation. Most still farm using oxen or horses to plow their fields.
Grandparents teach their grandchildren the traditional beliefs of their ancestors.
Because of this, many Mapuche have never heard the name of Jesus. Lost but not forgotten Lodged in the remote highlands of the Andes Mountains, the resilient Mapuche were the only Native Americans who successfully defended their land from Inca and Spanish conquest. The isolation that once protected them is now one of the main barriers to the spread of the gospel. The Mapuche adapted to the rough terrain of the Andes and the volcanoes which tower over the land. Their myths, stories and traditions are affected as much by frequent earthquakes as by the terrain of the southern cone of South America itself.