In the current context of the process of a New Constitution for Chile, which includes a new deal with the native peoples of this “long and narrow strip of land”, our proposal is…
Let’s give chile back the wüṉyelfe in the flag of bernardo O’higgins!!
To support this proposal, which is not to change the flag by any means, but to return it to some extent to its original conception, we will say that thanks mainly to the hard research of the thinker, philosopher and professor of the Catholic University Gastón Soublette and his precious book “The Star of Chile”, we know that the current Chilean flag was designed by the liberator Bernardo O’Higgins Riquelme (1778-1842) and the military Ignacio Zenteno , in February 1817 and which was first lay in the act of “Proclamation and Oath of the Independence of Chile” of February 12, 1818.
We also know that the original design of the Chilean flag, although it was at first sight almost identical to the current one, included some Mapuche and Masonic symbols that represented patriotic and spiritual values of great importance to O’Higgins, on which the father of the country wanted to found the nascent republic. Unfortunately, in later years, for reasons we don’t know deeply, O’Higgins’ flag was stripped of several of those symbols in the current design.
The Mapuche symbols of the flag of O’Higgins were first represented in the colors white, blue and red (which remain in the current one) which date back to the tricolor bands used by the Mapuche toquis during the Arauco War against the Spanish Conquest. In Canto XXI of the epic poem La Araucana (1569), Alonso de Ercilla described a warrior named Talcahuano, inhabitant of the lands near the current city that bears his name, who was followed by troops carrying blue, white and red emblems.
It passed after this then Talcahuano, […]
covered with high feathers, very lozano,
following his fighting people,
by the breasts to the bias traversed
blue, white and incarnate bands.
But an even more important symbol linking the nascent homeland to the Mapuche nation on the Chilean flag was an eight-pointed asterisk in the center of the white five-pointed star. It was the Wüṉyelfe (in Mapudungun) which represents the planet Venus, known as the dawn or sunset light depending on the time of year, and appears drawn in some cultrunes.
But what exactly was the Chilean flag like in Bernardo O’Higgins’ original design?
We are lucky that the flag of O’Higgins raised in the ceremony of the “Oath of Independence of Chile” of February 12, 1818 has reached our days, being currently visible to all public in the National Historical Museum.
According to Professor Soublette about the flag and its star, “many people when they saw it for the first time, asked O’Higgins what it represented and he said it is the star of Arauco. So since people in Chile are very superficial, that answer was enough for them, because someone could have asked them what the star of Arauco is and there would have appeared the Wuñyelfe, or eight-pointed star.
The academic maintains that in this way O’Higgins wanted to link the nation with indigenous blood, “as if to say that wisdom has a root in the Mapuche people.”
Regarding the symbolism of the star on the flag, it is understood that a star shines, delivers light and illuminates, so that the symbolism and spiritual Masonic meaning of a star in the flag of O’Higgins for Chile, we believe that it points far beyond simply the representation of the powers of the State, as officially explained.
Remember that O’Higgins was born in Chillán in 1778 and that he studied as an intern of the College of Natives of the same city, where the children of the Mapuche chieftains of the area also studied, so there he also learned to speak Mapudungun.
It has been silenced by history and official teaching, the attitude of respect and dignity that Bernardo O’Higgins had towards the Mapuche people and towards all the “native peoples”, which he reflected not only in the symbols of his flag for Chile, but also in his explicit recognition of the independence of these peoples, through a letter in March 1819 entitled “The supreme director of the State to our brothers the inhabitants of the southern border”, from which we reproduce the following extract:
“Araucanos, cunchos, huilliches and all the southern indigenous tribes: you had no longer beenthe one President who being only a servant of the king of Spain affected over you an unlimited superiority; the head of a free and sovereign people, who recognizes your independence, speaks to you, and is about to ratify this recognition by a public and solemn act, while signing the great Charter of our alliance to present it to the world as the impregnable wall of the freedom of our States. Answer me through the Governor Intendant of Concepción whom I have commissioned to deal with this interesting business, and let me know of our willingness to begin negotiations. In the meantime accept the consideration and sincere affection with which you wish to be your true friend”
Another excerpt from the same letter reads:
“….Our schools will be open to young people of yours who voluntarily want to come and be educated in them, at the expense of our treasury at all costs. In this way civilization and the lights that make men, social, frank and virtuous, will spread, knowing the link between the rights of the individual and those of society; and that in order to preserve them in their territory, it is necessary to respect those of the surrounding peoples. From this knowledge will be born the confidence that our merchants enter your territory without fear of any extortion, and that you do the same in ours, under the protection of the right of peoples that we will observe religiously”,
We must also remember the condition of Mason of Bernardo O’Higgins and that a good part of the Spanish-American independences were woaved in Europe, inside secret Masonic lodges, of which the so-called “Lautaro Lodge” founded in Europe stands out, whose name referred to the Mapuche toqui or caudillo Lautaro, for being the one who had led the resistance against the Spanish conquistadors in the Captaincy General of Chile in the sixteenth century , thus helping to keep part of the Araucanía independent of the Spanish crown.
The reasons and conveniences for which Chile was stripped of the symbols of the O’Higgins flag are unknown to us and it would be valuable for some objective historian to be able to explain it, as well as the reasons and conveniences why February 12 is not the date of “Chile’s Independence Day”, but September 18 , even though it is known that the Junta of Aristocrats of September 18, 1810 was far from being an independence.
Although the proportions (golden proportions) and the arrangement of the star (tilted to the left) on the flag of O’Higgins, also corresponded to symbolisms that were lost, if we were to restore the Wüṉyelfe to the design of the current flag, we would have the following national emblem:
As Bernardo O’Higgins clearly understood, being Chilean does not have to be antagonistic to being Mapuche, Rapa Nui or Aymara. This becomes particularly critical at a time when both Chile and much of the world have begun to embrace the paradigm of inclusion.
We believe that it is the right time to return to our flag the Mapuche Wüṉyelfe of the liberator Bernardo O’Higgins, which would not only be an act of justice for our father of the country, but a symbol of new treatment in integration and dignity for the Mapuche people and for all the native peoples of Chile.
The content of this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
