
We travel for two hours from Valdivia, crossing dirt roads and taking a ferry in order to get to the entrance of Fundo Punta Galera, located in Chaihuín, an area of Los Rios. This vast Fundo is a large private estate which was "regained" a few weeks ago by the Mapuche community called Lonko Pablo Nauco.
To show it, a Mapuche flag is fluttering at the entrance, and a banner announces that the community has managed to regain the land: the bolt securing the gate seems to convey the message "no one can enter here anymore".
The community is very suspicious because they fear that the "owners" of the large estate or the police may take action to get the land back. However, we are allowed to enter thanks to the contact we established with the werkén, i.e. the spokesperson of the community.
After crossing another dirt road, surrounded on one side by rich eucalyptus vegetation and on the other by the powerful view of the Pacific Ocean and its virgin beaches, we finally meet the community.
After several handshakes and a more in-depth introduction of who they are, some community members begin to tell us the story of their families and their ancestral lands.
The territory where we stand - which has always been inhabited by Mapuche Lafkenche communities of the coast - was donated by the Chilean State to a French noblewoman in 1922. Fortunately, she never took an interest in the matter and never set foot on "her land", therefore the sale of the land did not have any impact on the life of the indigenous community.