The concept of taypi ch’ixi as a contribution to the study of Mapuche bilingual poetry

Abstract

In Andean Aymara weaving, the taypi is the center which arranges the symmetries, asymmetries and rhythms of the textile practice. Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui takes up this concept to refer to a taypi chꞌixi as the space where the Indigenous and the Western interweave, and the vitality of the complex Latin American cultural fabric is evinced. This work seeks to study the conceptual depth and the applicability of notions such as chꞌixi and taypi to analyze self-translation in current bilingual poetry of Indigenous authorship as an in-between space of tension, a fabric weaved in the conflict and complementarity among languages, cultures and subjectivities. This discussion will be followed by the analysis of poems and metatexts by the Mapuche authors Leonel Lienlaf and Adriana Pinda, which deal particularly with the tension between orality and writing.