Butalmapu or Fütalmapu is the name in

Mapudungun Mapuche (, Mapuche & Spanish: , or Mapudungun; from ' 'land' and ' 'speak, speech') is an Araucanian language related to Huilliche spoken in south-central Chile and west-central Argentina by the Mapuche people (from ''mapu'' 'land' and ''che ...

for "great land", which were one of the great confederations wherein the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...

people organized themselves in case of war. These confederations corresponded to the great geographic areas inhabited by the Mapuches in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

. At the beginning of the

conquest of Chile The Conquest of Chile is a period in Chilean historiography that starts with the arrival of Pedro de Valdivia to Chile in 1541 and ends with the death of Martín García Óñez de Loyola in the Battle of Curalaba in 1598, and the destruction of ...

it is thought that there was a Butalmapu among the Picunche from the Limari River south to the vicinity of the

Mataquito River Mataquito is a river located in the Curicó Province, Province of Curicó, Maule Region of Chile and formed by the union of rivers Teno River, Teno and Lontué River, Lontué about 10 kilometers west of Curicó near the locality of Sagrada Familia, ...

that was headed by a

Michimalonco Michima Lonco (fl. mid-16th century) (''michima'' means "foreigner" and ''lonco'' means "head" or "chief" in Mapudungun language) was a Picunche chief said to be a great warrior, born in the Aconcagua Valley and educated in Cusco by the Inca Em ...

. Also at the beginning of the conquest of Chile, a

Moluche The Moluche ("people from where the sun sets" or "people from the west") or Nguluche are an indigenous people of Chile. Their language was a dialect of Mapudungun, a Mapuche language. At the beginning of the Conquest of Chile by the Spanish Empire ...

Butalmapu, ( name unknown), existed south of the Itata River and north of the

Bio Bio River Bio or BIO may refer to: Computing * bio(4), a pseudo-device driver in RAID controller management interface in OpenBSD and NetBSD * Block I/O, a concept in computer data storage Politics * Julius Maada Bio (born 1964), Sierra Leonean politic ...

. It may have included the aillurehue of the Cauquenes north of the Itata, who occasionally fought with them against the Spanish in the sixteenth century and earlier against the

Inca The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admi ...

in the Battle of the Maule. Among the

south of the

there were by the seventeenth century, three Butalmapu, that conformed with the main territorial identities of the Moluche: '' Lafkenmapu'', the coastal region, '' Lelfünmapu'' the plains of the Intermediate Depression and '' Inapiremapu'' the foothills of the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

. One other '' Piremapu'' in the

mountain range, was inhabited by the

Pehuenche Pehuenche (or ''Pewenche'', people of the "pehuen" or "pewen" in Mapudungun) are an indigenous people of South America. They live in the Andes, primarily in present-day south central Chile and adjacent Argentina. Their name derives from their de ...

s. Each butalmapu was made up of several smaller confederations;

aillarehue Aillarehue or Ayllarehue (from the Mapudungun: ayllarewe/ayjarewe: "nine rehues"); a confederation of rehues or family-based units ( lof) that dominated a region or province. It was the old administrative and territorial division of the Mapuche, ...

s, that were made up of a number of familial clans of the same region, known as lofs. In case of an external danger or the beginning of a military campaign, the

lonco A lonko or lonco (from Mapudungun ''longko'', literally "head"), is a chief of several Mapuche communities. These were often ulmen Ulmen is a town in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the like-named ...

s (

caciques A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a ...

) of all the lofs chose a supreme military leader of the Butalmapu, called the

Toqui Toqui (or Toki) (Mapudungun for ''axe'' or ''axe-bearer'') is a title conferred by the Mapuche (an indigenous Chilean and Argentinian people) on those chosen as leaders during times of war. The toqui is chosen in an assembly or parliament ('' ...

and Gran Toqui by the Spaniards. This leader had the right to make military decisions and usually only left his position when the campaign finished or he died. Butalmapus were not described as such in Spanish chronicles until the ''Cautiverio feliz y razón individual de las guerras dilatadas del reino de Chile'', of

Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán (1607–1682) was a Chilean writer and soldier. He was born in Chillán Viejo, Biobío Region, Chile. In 1629 he participated in an expedition to defeat the Mapuche, but, during the Battle of Las Cangr ...

, where an account of these confederations first occurred. They were called by Núñez “utanmapu”. Among the

Huilliche The Huilliche , Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group of Chile. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco subgroup, the north h ...

and Cuncos to the south of the Moluche there were two Butalmapu: '' Willimapu'' located in between the Toltén River and the

Bueno River Bueno River (Spanish: ''Río Bueno'') is a river in southern Chile. It originates in Ranco Lake and like most of Chile rivers it drains into the Pacific Ocean at the southern boundary of the Valdivian Coastal Reserve. Its lower flow forms the bo ...

and the '' Chawra kawin'' located between the Bueno River and the

Reloncaví Sound Reloncaví Sound or ''Seno de Reloncaví'' is a body of water immediately south of Puerto Montt, a port city in the Los Lagos Region of Chile. It is the place where the Chilean Central Valley meets the Pacific Ocean. The Calbuco Archipelago c ...

. By 1805 these were consolidated into just one, ''Huillimapu''.Francisco Xavier Ramírez, ''Cronicon Sacro - Imperial de Chile, Fuentes para el estudio de la colonia''; transcripción de Jaime Valenzuela M., Dirección de Bibliotecas Archivos y Museos, Centro de Investigaciones Diego Barros Arana, Santiago, 1994, páginas 67 -71.

References

Sources

* Ricardo E. Latcham
''La organización social y las creencias religiosas de los antiguos araucanos'', Impr. Cervantes, Santiago de Chile, 1924.

{{mapuche Mapuche territorial units History of Chile Mapuche history