MAPUCHE MEDICINE

NGUILLIÚ - Piñón, a typical tree seed of Patagonia
By Pilar Cimato

I would like share with you a little story about the most nutritive seeds with medicinal properties too. The Piñón is the most typical tree seed of the northewest region of Patagonia, the Araucaria araucana or Pehuén. The story begins like this...

"Before the huinca comes to those places, there was a very cold winter. There was not more food, the people died. The pudú, the choique, the luan had disappeared. Nobody knew where they had gone.
The coná (young people), went to look for animals to hunt, but most of them, never came back. So, the Lonkos (mapuche chiefs), decided to have a meeting, and call for help to others communities, but it was not enough.
One day the coná came back and carried nguilliú. He said that when he was at the Cordillera (Andean mountain range), he met with an old man. The coná told him what has been happening with his people. The old man asked him why they ate with Araucaria ´s seeds, that it the true food that Nguenechén has sent for us. After that the coná did not see anymore the old man.
Everybody met to listen the story, someone said that it was Nguenechén (mapuche god) messenger.
They looked for every seeds, recollected and ate them. Since then, when the Nguillatún is celebrated, the Rehue is set on the Pehuén and everybody drink chafi."

The Pehuén (Araucaria araucana), an always green tree, is 30 mts high. It is the country's second most long-lived tree, after the alerce (larch). Some of them live to be a thousand years old.
The young tree develops a pyramidal form and the mature one a short umbrella-shaped. The smooth bark is greyish-brown in colour and can be up to 8 cm thick. The horizontal branches emerge from the trunk in whorls of 3 – 8 and the tree is covered in scale-like leaves all year round. These trees are mainly dioecious; different trees bear flowers of different sexes. The large cones develop in the upper branches and bright orange-brown seeds are released.

The mapuche people cook the seeds in various ways or ferment them for a drink. Then with raw seeds, they prepare a bread, calls “ canuto” . Its nutritional power is very high.

About its medicine properties, the pehuén resin is utilized for ulcer and lumbago. Even though is utilized like poultice to heal wounds.

Source: Pilar Cimato. Professor of Biological Sciences specialized in environmental health sciences. Her research background has focused on the native and exotic plants phytotherapy. Contact to: pilarc31@yahoo.com.ar edicinal plants in Chile