page_title: Music of Chile
section_title: Pre-Columbian and colonial times
hierarchical_section_title: Music of Chile / Music in Chile / Pre-Columbian and colonial times
caption_attribution_description: English: A Machi is a shaman or (usually) a good witch in the Mapuche culture of South America; and is also an important character and the Mapuche mythology. Español: Machis tocando el "kultrun". Fotografia de 1900, Sector Carrereñi, Chol-chol. El nombre Machi es usado para designar a la persona que tiene la función de autoridad religiosa, consejera y protectora del pueblo Mapuche. Debido a que actualmente en mucho menor la proporción de hombres que cumplen la función de Machi, normalmente se describe al Machi como una mujer mapuche.
context_page_description: Chilean music refers to all kinds of music developed in Chile, or by Chileans in other countries, from the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors to the modern day. It also includes the native pre-Columbian music from what is today Chilean territory.
context_section_description: Prior to the arrival of the European conquerors, the modern national borders that make up the Americas did not exist, so one cannot refer to music from "Chile", or any other South American country, from this time. However, music existed in the Americas for centuries before European conquest, and many of the characteristics and instruments of pre-Hispanic music have formed part of the folkloric and musical tradition of Chile and of Latin America.
  Archaeological excavations have unearthed many musical instruments showing the existence of a variety of musical cultures in the area long before even the Inca period. Scientific research into remains left by the Nazca and Mochica peoples has shown the existence of complex theoretical musical systems, with the presence of minor intervals, semitones, chromaticism and musical scales of five, six, seven and eight notes, equivalent to contemporaneous cultures in Asia and Europe.
  Sociologist Carlos Keller has compared the Inca occupation of the Andean region with the Roman occupation of Greece or the Aztec conquest of the Maya.  Like the Aztecs and Romans, the Incas took the knowledge and traditions of the cultures they found and incorporated them into their own. Inca music was formed by elements of Nazca, Chimú, Colla – Aymara and other cultures. It is also believed that the Incas were the first American people to develop some kind of formal music education.
  Atacama people
  When the Incas advanced over the north of Chile, they encountered different native peoples and absorbed elements of their culture, especially the Atacameños (Atacama people). The Atacameños - themselves highly influenced by the Nazca - were an organized society that inhabited parts of the Atacama Desert, mainly in the east and central sectors of the region, and spread as far as Central Chile. They were conquered by the Incas in the 15th century, but today still speak and sing some of the ancient songs in cunza, the original language of their people.
  Mapuche people
  The Mapuche people were the main indigenous people populating the region running from Copiapó in the north to Chiloé in the south. The Mapuche were never conquered by the Incas, so their music and musical instruments differ from the northern cultures that fell under Andean influence. Spanish chroniclers observed their musical rituals with interest, and their observations have allowed historians to compare this early music with the Mapuche music of the modern day. Historian Samuel Marti writes that the Mapuche “do not dance or sing to demonstrate knowledge and skill, or to entertain spectators, but to honour their gods”. Mapuche music today, despite the influence of Christianity, is still an expression of faith, hopes or fears to the traditional gods, because the conquest did not change the spirit of these peoples, even though it introduced new cultural elements.
  The Franciscan missionary Geronimo de Ore (Lima, Peru, circa 1598) noted that Mapuche children learned songs from a very young age and demonstrated excellent memory and sense of rhythm. De Ore, realizing that these skills could be used as an evangelization and religious indoctrination tool, proposed that Christian prayers should have been taught in the native language and sung to native or European tunes. The same method was used in Chile by Jesuit priests. Jesuit priest Bernardo Havestadt came to Chile in 1748 and worked as missionary in La Mocha Concepción, Rere and Santa Fe. In 1777, he published a document in Westphalia that contains 19 Mapuche songs accompanied by European-style music. 
  Unlike the Andean peoples, the Mapuches did not develop a theoretical musical system, but in practice one is imposed by the limitations of their instruments. The technique of playing these instruments has been preserved from generation to generation and melodies are formed by linking periods. There are no long notes in Mapuche music and the scales and melodic schemes of their music have no relation to the panphonic Andean music. In the seventeenth century, chronicler Gonzalez de Najera described the music as “
caption: Mapuche Machis with Kultrun, a traditional drum
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:01:17 17:05:55", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7861", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1318", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "939"}