Archive against the loss of Mapuche cultures - Excursion to Berlin

Before the official start of the 2025 summer semester, a small group of Hispanic Studies students led by Annika Rink took an in-depth look at Mapuche culture and European research into these groups as part of a cultural and literary studies seminar.

Over the course of two weeks, the students read the novel "El tren del olvido" by Argentinian Mapuche and activist Moira Millán. Based on the depiction of her moving family history, adorned with numerous fictional facets, as well as the narrative recourse to Argentina's historical expansionist policy and the founding of the state, which runs like a red thread through the story as a cultural and territorial threat, the author manages to contrast the strength, pride and connection to nature of her people with this as a survival strategy. Reading the novel offered the opportunity to immerse oneself in the social coexistence, the language (mapudungun) and the thinking (closeness to nature and spirituality) of the Mapuche and to understand their painful history of expulsion and extinction from the perspective of the indigenous people.

The seminar was further enriched by a guest lecture by Anahí Rayen Mariluan, an ethnomusicologist, musician and activist with a doctorate, who deals with the phonological legacy of the Mapuche in her art and academic work.

The highlight was the two-day excursion to Berlin. In the ethnological museum, the students learned about the possibilities anthropologists and ethnologists such as Robert Lehmann-Nitsche had to preserve acoustic signals in their work around 100 years ago. The Berlin Phonogrammarchiv offered exciting insights into how sounds, songs and speech could be stored with the help of wax cylinders in order to make them accessible to posterity. Robert Lehmann-Nitsche was a German anthropologist and physician who left a lasting impact through his ethnological research on the Mapuche culture in Patagonia.

The students at the Ibero-American Institute (Humbolt University's departmental library and the largest collection of Hispanic literature in Germany) were able to examine and read his legacy for themselves. Among the original documents were letters (including to his mother), postcards, drawings, travel diaries, essays and notes from his field research.

(Ricardo Jimenez)