Taiñ Feyentún

The Mapuche of south-central Chile and southwest Argentina kept their independence from both the Inca and Spanish empires. Their faith has no formal leadership and varies by family and territory, and since the beliefs were passed down orally and later retold through Spanish missionaries, they are not precisely known.

The cosmos has three planes: the sky, wenu mapu, home of the gods and the ancestors; the earth, where good and evil contend; and the underworld, home of the harmful wekufe spirits. Nature spirits, the ngen, own particular places and punish trespassers.

Communities held prayer ceremonies, ngillatun, while machi healers and diviners communicated with the spirits. The god Ngünechen, equated by many with the Christian God, is attested only from the nineteenth century.