SANTIAGO (IPS/GIN) - Five young Chileans of Mapuche descent are making it on the local hip hop scene, using their music to help the ancestral struggle of their people for autonomy and self-determination. They do not all speak the Mapuche language fluently, but are keen on preserving the culture of that ethnic group.

The group’s name in Mapuzungun, the Mapuche language, is Kolectivo We Newen, which means New Strength Collective. Its members, four young men and one woman, share a love of hip hop, poetry and their heritage.

All five are from the Araucania region, where 23.5 percent of the Mapuche nation, the country’s largest ethnic group, live. According to the 2002 census, nearly 700,000 people, equivalent to 4.6 percent of the total Chilean population, belong to different native ethnic groups. Among these the Mapuches are the largest group, accounting for 87.3 percent.

Except for Danko Mariman, 22, who is studying architecture in Boston, they all live in the capital.

They formed the group in July this year, and released their first album on Sept. 18. The compact disc has 20 songs with provocative titles such as “How Much Longer Are We Going to Bear It?”; “Araucania, Mapuche Country”; “Kill or Die”; “I Dream That They Won’t Steal our Childhood”; “What We Propose”; and “Urban Mapuche.”

Fabian and Ricardo, nicknamed “M.C. Aktivista” and “M.C. Kombativo” respectively, also participate in the We Newen collective. They both belong to the Gonzalo Marin Mapuche community, which on Sept. 13 peacefully occupied the El Notro farm in the Huilio district, claiming it was part of their ancestral territory.

“We all saw hip hop as a way of expressing our experiences, talking about important topics, but most importantly we saw it as a political tool,” said Mr. Mariman.

“When we talk about ‘Mapuchifying’ hip hop and poetry, we mean incorporating them into our culture. Through both these art forms, we bring to light our personal and collective struggles. We could also speak of ethno-poetry and ethno-hip hop, connected in this case with the Mapuche people,” he further explained.

On the album, the musicians emphasize the need to strengthen the Mapuche identity in the region where they were born. Greater territorial autonomy for that ethnic group in Araucania is one of the main proposals of the first Mapuche political party, currently in its formative stages. The band’s spokesman stated that their songs are not meant to attack all Chileans, but only the “repressive, terrorist, racist, assimilationist and ethnocidal policies of the Chilean government.”

For financial reasons, they only produced 100 copies of the CD, but they trust that it will reach a wider audience over the Internet. The songs can be downloaded at www.kolectivowenewen.tk/. Although they have not yet given live performances, they have been invited to take part in stage events in the city of Temuco, the capital of Araucania.

The group says that where their album falls short is in its limited use of Mapuzungun, which they say will feature more prominently in their future work. Only one of the band’s five members speaks it fluently, and the others said they are “recovering” the language. The songs are mainly in Spanish, with a few words of Mapuzungun.

The CD has been generally well received. One week after it was launched, their website had been visited by more than 1,500 people from around the world.

The Kolektivo We Newen aims to become “a way for urban Mapuches to express their identity.” Seventy percent of the Mapuche people are now city dwellers. The young musicians dislike being called “Indigenous people.”

“The term ‘Indigenous people’ is used to refer to a human group with an inferior social and intellectual capacity for development, who therefore are seen as belonging to a kind of sub-category of persons fit only for heavy manual work,” Mr. Mariman said. “We think that we, the new generations, have in ourselves the power to change that concept, move out of that pigeonhole and reinvent ourselves as a nation with new challenges, because we are capable. We prefer the terms Mapuche, Native Americans and Original Peoples, because they give us the dignity we deserve. They’re more accurate and less prejudiced.”