Forgotten and Unknown? The Mapuche Ignacio Cumulai in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Shadow Archives

Abstract

Since 1896, Bavarian Capuchins have carried out missionary work among the indigenous population of Araucanía (Chile) within a context of state occupation and socio-political tensions. Their mission, established through a contract with the Chilean state, aimed to civilize, educate, and Christianize the Mapuche people through mission schools and modern, Western-style education. During their time in Araucanía, the Capuchins built relationships with various local communities, migrants, and Chilean authorities, generating a valuable collection of documentary and visual records, now dispersed across archives in Germany and Chile.
In particular, the photographs taken by the Capuchins were key to constructing representations of the relationships between missionaries and the Mapuche. This analysis examines their processes of production, dissemination, and appropriation, highlighting their uses and meanings for Chilean and German audiences. Through the case of Ignacio Cumulai – previously anonymous – it is argued that these photographs form part of a ‘frontier archive,’ understood as a space of interaction between actors and forms of knowledge across different territories and temporalities. In this liminal condition, these images also function as part of a ‘shadow archive’ (Sekula 1986), as they are fragmented, dispersed, and marginalized from official narratives. Thus, their management, decolonization, and valorization not only enable the reconstruction of their circulation and historical meanings but also reveal the tensions between exclusion and recovery in the archival sphere, engaging with debates associated with the archival and material turn.