The words we use, and what they cost

Land · earth

Land, earth, territory. It is the root of the name of the people: mapu (land) plus che (people) — Mapuche, the people of the land.

To be Mapuche is to belong to a land, not to own one.

Source Catrileo, Diccionario lingüístico-etnográfico de la lengua mapuche (1995)

The world above · the celestial dimension

The upper world, the sky, the celestial dimension in Mapuche cosmology. It is the counterpart of Nag Mapu, the middle world we walk on, and Minche Mapu, the world below.

This is the name the house carries. It was not invented by this brand: it is a documented cosmological concept, recorded by Margarita Canio Llanquinao and Gabriel Pozo Menares in Wenumapu — Astronomía y Cosmología Mapuche (OCHOLIBROS, 2015). We are readers of that book, not its authors.

Source Canio and Pozo (2015), ISBN 978-956-335-205-4 · Foerster, Introducción a la religiosidad mapuche (1995). See /canon

The middle world · the earth we walk on

The dimension between Wenu Mapu (sky) and Minche Mapu (below). The territory humans share with the ngen, the territorial spirits.

Source Foerster (1995)

The whole Mapuche territory

The entire Mapuche territory, spanning what are today southern Chile and Argentina. It is a territorial and political term, not a state.

Source Canio and Pozo (2015) · Bengoa, Historia del pueblo mapuche (2000)

The sun · the day · time itself

The Sun in Mapudungun. The same word marks the day — the smallest counted unit of time. Antü inhabits Wenu Mapu.

Ceremonies traditionally begin at dawn, facing east. Antü is paired with Küyen, the Moon: day and night, light and dark.

Source Catrileo (1995) · Foerster (1995) · Canio and Pozo (2015)

The moon · the lunar month

The Moon, and also the lunar month — the unit by which the ceremonial calendar is kept. Lunar phases shape planting, fishing and ritual timing across the territory.

Source Catrileo (1995) · Foerster (1995)

Venus · the morning star · the eight-pointed star

Also written Wünelfe or Guñelve. The planet Venus: the first star at dawn, the last at dusk, the brightest light in the sky after Sun and Moon.

Its graphic form — the eight-pointed star — is one of the most recognisable motifs in platería mapuche (Mapuche silverwork) and in weaving. It appears on prendedores, trariwe belts and ceremonial cloths. See also the Symbols section below.

Source Catrileo (1995) · Lavanderos, Platería mapuche (2002)

Star · the stars and constellations

Star. Also written Wangülen or Wanlen depending on the orthography used. In the plural it names the totality of visible stars and the constellations.

Source Canio and Pozo (2015), ch. 3, pp. 72–105

The Milky Way · the celestial river

Literally the river of the sky. In the documented accounts it is the celestial river along which the souls of the departed travel.

Source Canio and Pozo (2015), ch. 3

Wind · breath

Wind, and by extension breath — that which passes through.

Source Catrileo (1995)

Dream · vision

The dream. In Mapuche cosmology dreams are a real channel of communication: through them ancestors speak, the ngen warn or guide, and the future can leave footprints.

Machi — Mapuche healers and spiritual authorities — often receive their calling and their ongoing guidance through pewma. Elders teach that not every dream is significant, but some are.

Source Bacigalupo, Shamans of the Foye Tree (2007) · Canio and Pozo (2015), chs. 5–7

The land of the four places · the four cardinal directions

The four documented Mapuche cardinal directions: Puel (east), Pikun (north), Willi (south) and Lafken (west). Ceremony is oriented by them.

Note of honesty: the ten stars of our /experience portal are arranged spatially for the interface. Only Lafken sits in its true Mapuche cardinal position. The rest of that arrangement is editorial, not traditional.

Source Catrileo (1995) · Foerster (1995)

The ceremonial drum of the machi

A shallow, hemispheric ceremonial drum, sounded by the machi. It is the central instrument of the ngillatun and of machi ritual.

The membrane is commonly painted with a design that divides the drumhead into four quadrants — a figure that scholarship has read as a symbolic map of the world, echoing the four directions of Meli Witran Mapu. It is drum, and it is diagram.

Source Grebe, El kultrún mapuche: un microcosmo simbólico, Revista Musical Chilena (1973)

Healer · ritual authority

The Mapuche traditional healer and spiritual leader. The role is a vocation, most often received through pewma, and it is exercised within a community, not over it.

Source Bacigalupo (2007)

Territorial spirit · owner of a place

The spirit-owner of a place — of a lake, a forest, a river, a hill. Ngen-Lafken is the spirit of the sea, asked permission before fishing. The ngen make land a relative rather than a resource.

Source Bacigalupo (2007) · Foerster (1995)

The unwritten way of the land

The body of unwritten norms that orients a person’s relations to family, community, ngen and territory. It is not codified. It is transmitted in oral tradition, ceremony and daily life.

Source Quidel Lincoleo, El Az Mapu o sistema normativo mapuche (CONADI / UC Temuco)

Assembly · gathering · council

A Mapuche gathering or assembly, and for centuries the form of collective decision-making. A trawün works through dialogue and consensus, not majority vote.

Source Marimán, Autodeterminación (2012) · Dillehay

The two serpents of the origin story

Kai Kai Vilu is the serpent of the water; she raises the great flood. Treng Treng Vilu is the serpent of the mountain; she raises the land to save the people.

The story is told in many versions across the territory. In most of them, those who climbed Treng Treng’s mountain survived the flood and became the ancestors of the Mapuche people.

Source Latcham (1924) · Cooper, The Araucanians, Handbook of South American Indians (1946)

The Mapuche New Year · the return of the sun

Also called Wiñoy Tripantu, the sun returns. Celebrated around the southern winter solstice, roughly 21–24 June, when the longest night gives way to the lengthening day.

Families gather before dawn, bathe in the cold river, offer thanks and receive the first light of the returning year.

Source Bengoa (2000) · Canio and Pozo (2015), ch. 4, pp. 106–118

The greeting

The respectful Mapudungun greeting. It is how the house says hello, and it is the name behind the address [email protected].

Source Catrileo (1995)

Force · strength · vital energy

Force, strength. In the cosmovision, the vital energy present in beings and in places.

Source Catrileo (1995)

Made to adorn the body — and nothing more than that

From the Latin ornamentum, that which adorns. In this house the word is used precisely, and it is a limit as much as a description.

Ornamental means the piece is made to be worn and looked at. It is not a medical device, not an amulet with proven power, not a cure, not a claim about your health, your luck or your spirit. When we say a piece is ornamental we are telling you what it does: it decorates a body. Whatever meaning it carries beyond that, you bring.

In piercing practice the word also draws a hard line: ornamental jewelry is for healed piercings. It is not initial jewelry. See implant-grade titanium.

The thickness of the post or wire

The standard measure of body-jewelry thickness. The scale runs backwards: the higher the gauge number, the thinner the metal. 20ga is thin; 0ga is thick.

Common conversions — 20ga = 0.8 mm · 18ga = 1.0 mm · 16ga = 1.2 mm · 14ga = 1.6 mm · 12ga = 2.0 mm · 10ga = 2.4 mm · 8ga = 3.2 mm · 6ga = 4 mm · 4ga = 5 mm · 2ga = 6 mm · 0ga = 8 mm · 00ga = 10 mm.

Beyond 00ga the trade abandons gauge and simply states millimetres or inches.

The three ways a piece of jewelry closes

Threadless (also press-fit): the decorative end has a small pin that is bent slightly and held in the hollow post by tension. Nothing screws. The post that passes through the tissue is perfectly smooth.

Internally threaded: the thread is cut inside the post, and the screw lives on the end. Again, what passes through the tissue is smooth.

Externally threaded: the thread is cut on the outside of the post, so a screw thread is dragged through the piercing channel every time the piece goes in or out. It is cheap to manufacture and it is the mark of low-quality jewelry. We do not use it for fresh piercings.

The only metal a fresh piercing should meet

ASTM F-136 is the standard covering Ti-6Al-4V ELI — a titanium alloy with extra-low interstitials, specified for surgical implants. It is bio-compatible, nickel-free in practice, light, and it does not corrode in the body.

Every starter piece we place is ASTM F-136. Suppliers provide mill certificates per batch. If a shop cannot tell you the standard its metal meets, that is your answer.

Source ASTM International F136 · site pages /material/titanium and /piercing

Gold all the way through, or gold on the surface

Solid gold means the alloy itself is gold: 14k is 58.5 percent gold, 18k is 75 percent. It can be worn in a fresh piercing (14k and above, with the right finish) because there is no coating to wear through.

Gold-tone, gold-plated, gold-filled, vermeil and PVD-coated pieces are a base metal wearing a gold-coloured surface. PVD (physical vapour deposition) is a durable, well-made coating — but it is still a coating.

A coating can wear, and what is underneath then meets the skin. Coated pieces belong in healed piercings, not fresh ones. We will always tell you which one you are buying.

92.5 percent silver, 7.5 percent something else

The .925 stamp means the alloy is 92.5 percent pure silver; the remaining 7.5 percent is usually copper, added because pure silver is too soft to hold a form.

Silver tarnishes — that is the copper reacting with air, and it is normal, not a defect. It also oxidises against the body and can leave a grey mark.

Sterling belongs in healed piercings, in ear weights and hangers worn in settled lobes, and in pieces worn on the outside of the body. It is not initial jewelry and never should be.

A stony-iron meteorite from the Atacama Desert

Mesosiderites are a rare class of stony-iron meteorite: roughly half metal, half silicate rock, mixed together in a violent collision between two bodies in the early solar system.

Vaca Muerta is the mesosiderite fall recovered in the Atacama Desert, in northern Chile, documented from the nineteenth century. Its material formed with the solar system, on the order of 4.5 billion years ago.

It is a finite material. When a piece is set with Vaca Muerta it is stated plainly on the product page — including who cut and cast it. See /material/vacamuerta.

A single piece. No second edition.

A piece made once, from a material or a moment that does not repeat — a specific stone, a specific fragment of meteorite, a specific afternoon at the bench. When it sells, it is gone, and we will not quietly reissue it as a run.

The three honest origins of everything we sell

Hand-forged: made in the studio, from raw material, by Wenu Mapu. These are the pieces that can be commissioned.

Curated-independent: designed and made by another independent maker, chosen by us, sold under their authorship — not ours.

Imported-curated: a selected piece from an international supplier, sold as it is. Good jewelry, honestly labelled, and not pretending to be handmade.

The rule of the house: we never call an imported piece handmade. If a product page does not say hand-forged, it is not. This distinction is enforced in the code that builds every product page, not just in our promises.

Source Canonical rule — handmade vs sourced. Implemented in src/pages/p/[slug].astro

The second appointment nobody warns you about

A fresh piercing is fitted with a deliberately long post to leave room for swelling. Once the swelling recedes — usually a few weeks — that extra length becomes a liability: it snags, it moves, it angles the channel.

Downsizing is the swap to a correctly-sized post. It is part of the piercing, not an upsell.

Two things that hang, held two different ways

An ear weight sits in a stretched lobe and is held there by its own mass and the shape of the eyelet — nothing closes behind it.

A hanger passes through the piercing and hangs from it, often from a smaller gauge, and does not require a stretched lobe.

Both are ornamental, both are for healed and settled tissue, and both are unforgiving of an over-stretched or thinned lobe. See /ear-stretching.

A four-thousand-year-old symbol of well-being — and the twentieth century that stole it

The word is Sanskrit: svastika, from su (good, well) and asti (it is, being). Svasti means well-being; the svastika is, literally, the mark of that which is conducive to well-being. It is an auspicious sign.

It is ancient and it is everywhere. It appears on the terracotta seals and pottery of the Indus Valley civilisation, thousands of years before the common era. It is a sacred symbol in Hinduism, in Buddhism and in Jainism, where it is drawn on thresholds, on account books, on temple walls. In Japan the manji marks Buddhist temples on maps to this day. Related hooked-cross and meander forms turn up independently in Greek, Celtic, Slavic, Ethiopian, Chinese and Indigenous American design, on ceramics and textiles, across cultures that never met.

In the twentieth century the German National Socialist party took this symbol, tilted it forty-five degrees, and adopted it as its emblem — the Hakenkreuz, the hooked cross — formally in 1920, and as the flag of the German state in 1935. Under it, and in its name, the Nazi regime murdered six million Jews and millions of Roma, Slavs, disabled people, gay people and political prisoners.

That is not a footnote and we will not soften it. In Europe and North America the symbol is now, first and above all, a symbol of that. It is a hate symbol. In Germany it is illegal to display it. If you see it on a wall in Berlin or in Brooklyn, it does not mean well-being, and pretending otherwise is a lie people tell to launder it.

And: both things are true at once. A billion people in South and East Asia still use this sign, every day, in exactly the meaning it has carried for four thousand years, and they did not consent to having it taken from them. Asian-American and Hindu, Buddhist and Jain communities have spent decades asking the West to learn the difference between the svastika and the Hakenkreuz — and asking, at the same time, that nobody use that difference as cover.

Where we stand: Wenu Mapu does not sell, forge, stock or stylise the Nazi Hakenkreuz. Nothing in our catalogue is that, and nothing in our catalogue will be. We keep this entry because the geometry is real, the history is older than the crime, and a customer who meets an ancient hooked cross in a museum, on a temple, or in a textile deserves to be told the truth about it in full rather than handed a silence.

Source Sanskrit etymology: standard lexicography (su + asti). Indus Valley attestation: archaeological record, c. 3300–1300 BCE. Nazi adoption 1920, state flag 1935: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Contemporary hate-symbol status: Anti-Defamation League.

Venus, rendered in silver

The eight-pointed star is the graphic form of Wüñelfe, the planet Venus, and it is among the most recognisable motifs in platería mapuche — Mapuche silverwork — and in weaving.

It is documented, it is Mapuche, and it is not ours. We use it with attribution, we name its source, and we do not claim it as a house sigil. See the Mapudungun entry above, and /canon.

Source Lavanderos, Platería mapuche (2002) · Catrileo (1995)

A four-quartered circle

The painted head of the machi’s drum divides a circle into four quadrants. Scholarship reads that figure as a symbolic map of the world — the four directions of Meli Witran Mapu held inside a single circle.

The cross-in-a-circle is one of the most universal figures human beings draw, and it means different things in every place it appears. When we mean the kültrun, we say kültrun. When we mean a geometric cross, we say a geometric cross. We do not let one borrow the authority of the other.

Source Grebe, Revista Musical Chilena (1973)

The Andean stepped cross — and it is not Mapuche

The chakana is the stepped cross of the Andes, associated with Quechua and Inca material culture and widely reinterpreted in the twentieth century.

It is South American. It is not Mapuche. Those are different peoples, different languages and different cosmovisions, separated by thousands of kilometres, and collapsing them into one generic Andean mysticism is exactly the flattening this house exists to refuse.

We say this here because chakana-inspired geometry has appeared in our own interface art. Where it does, it is Wenu Mapu design taking an Andean form as a visual reference — not a Mapuche symbol, and not presented as one.

Sanskrit for circle — a ritual diagram, not a decoration

Mandala is Sanskrit for circle. In Hindu and Buddhist practice a mandala is a ritual diagram of a cosmos or a deity’s realm, constructed and often deliberately destroyed as part of a discipline. It is not wallpaper. In the West, after Jung and after the colouring-book industry, the word came to mean roughly any symmetrical circular pattern.

When we use the word on this site we mean the Western sense — a radially symmetrical ornament — and we should say so. Our art is not a consecrated mandala and does not do what one does.