THE CHUECA OR Palin GAME
The Palinn Game of the Mapuche
People is called hockey by some chroniclers, travelers and ethnologists,
because of its similarity to actual field hockey game, which is
favorable for its understanding in the sport and scientific language
at international level.
Two teams representing their communities, each one with the same
number of players, between 5 and 15, placed in two rows facing each
other , on a rectangular field which is 200 meters long and 12 meters
wide. They dispute a wooden ball, pali o füngül, with
their wooden sticks too, weño, to carry it to their goal,
tripalwe, that are the short lines of the rectangle, one for each
team. The team that take the ball out from the line get a point
or tripal or raya. In the past all communities had their own team
and field.
www.deportesmapuches.cl/Palin.htm
Forbidden game
1647. Santiago - Chile: Gambling is forbidden
among Indians in Chile. The captain general, Mr. Martín de
Mujica, proclaims the prohibition of the chueca, game practiced
by the Araucano people according to their tradition, by hitting
a ball with sticks curved at one end in a field surrounded by green
branches.
All Indians that disobey will be punished with one hundred lashes
and the others will be fined, because of the vile chueca has been
widely spread among Creole soldiers. The edict of the captain general
dictates prohibition to avoid sins against the honor of God Our
Lord, and because running after the ball the Indians train for war:
disturbances come up from the game and then arrows are shoot among
themselves. It is indecent, he says, that in the chueca almost naked
men and women came together ,dressed only with feathers and animal
furs in which they base the fortune to win. At the beginning, they
invoke their gods to have a favorable ball to their feat and races
and finally, embraced, they drink plentiful of chicha.
Extracted from Eduardo Galeano. Memoria del
Fuego. I. Los Nacimientos
Diego Rosales. chronicler
"The most common games are the Chueca...
in the same way as the Mallo in Spain: a ball that is hit with some
twisted sticks curved at one end (...) which have a natural curve
at one end and is used as a mallet. They form two teams to fight
against each other to carry the ball (that is placed in the middle
of a hole) to their group, until they take it out from the line
that is marked on both sides(....) Since some team take the ball
out from its line: and get a point. After four or six lines, the
game is over, they can play a whole afternoon.(...) after the game,
they sit down to drink their chicha and get drunk. Sometimes in
those matches of Chueca the revolt are reached, because of they
called Indians from the whole earth: and at night, they talk and
agree on rebellions. Thus governors sometimes forbid this game and
these meetings for the damages experienced. In order to be light
for running, they play the game naked, wearing only a loincloth
to cover their indecency. Women wearing some cloth play sometimes
this game, and they all attend to the field to see them play and
run."
General History of the Kingdom of Chile,
Flandes Indiano. By Diego de Rosales. Written approximately between
the years 1652 and 1673.
|
" The Chueca game [Palin]"
by Claudio Gay, Atlas of physical and political history of Chile,
París 1854.
|
