1. Jaime Ibacache
Medical Doctor Fellow, Ashoka.
Archipiélago Chiloe.
Chile (ibacacheburgos@gmail.com)
1
Does Water Enter The Boat? – Families That Navigate
Reflections of Enculturation
Jaime Ibacache Burgos*
Medical Doctor in Archipelago of Chiloé
ALAMES Sur-Patagonia Chile
The environment in Chiloé island areas is in constant dialogue with the families.
This dialogue is based on a connection and observation with sacred spaces and signs
from nature that can prevent damage to the family and their surroundings. There is a
kind of self-culture with customs and knowledge constantly modeling behavior and that
heavily influence risk prevention, which is transferred via enculturation and sometimes
interacts in a two-way process with elements of other cultures via acculturation and
transculturation.
The coexistence of cosmoliving based on socio-historical mythology (my own
term, unfit for definition) is also modeling the development of children in island areas.
Thus, respect for sacred spaces ensures not falling into imbalances often due to a lack
of respect for the “Ngen” that inhabit and protect these places. These Ngen in the Chiloé
area have been transculturized into the Chiloé "duende" (dwarf, in English) or "ruende"
(a kind of dwarf) – two important creatures in Chiloé island mythology – providing us with
a perfect example of the complex socio-historical reality and culture in the archipelago.
The existence even of diagnosed methodologies based on the relationship with
nature indicate that parenting includes such transfer of knowledge where independent of
their genre, the mother or father, grandmother or grandfather, engage in dialogue with
children about their culture to generate understanding of their environment.

2. Jaime Ibacache
Medical Doctor Fellow, Ashoka.
Archipiélago Chiloe.
Chile (ibacacheburgos@gmail.com)
2
To observe the “bushel”, or almud, of the Andes Mountains from the coast of the
Caguach Island to see if it is "clothed or unclothed" allow costal communities to prepare
for the approaching seasons of the year. Such is an example of knowledge conveyed in
daily life and through enculturation within the family structure. See video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie9IYBLTCP0
On the other hand, the dialogues with this nature full of protector or perpetrator
beings according to the context of the relationship (respect or no respect), leads us to
identify situations that must be prevented. For example, the Chauko currents, air
currents produced by transgressed beings that enter the bodies of children through their
natural orifices ("it entered the body through this hole!") can produce death; therefore
preventive behaviors are transmitted to boys and girls from a very young age.
Furthermore, they have developed a way of viewing the body and its ecological
limitations as a permeable membrane, and even more so as sensitive to fissures. See
episode on air currents in the video “Sindromes Culturales” (Cultural Syndromes, in
English): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_G_hcOwqYE
Dialogue with a nature that is "cosmovivenciada" (a term to signify nature as having a
cosmoliveable element) has allowed in some families the creation of knowledge from the
use of parts of mythological beings that exist in natural spaces and protect the ecological
equilibrium. For example, the scrapes from the horn of a Camahueto, a small animal that
exists in Chiloé mythology, are applied to the legs of infants under one year so that their
walk is strong and agile as they grow older. Watch video, "The Horn Camahueto" at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1_WfWRbLKE

3. Jaime Ibacache
Medical Doctor Fellow, Ashoka.
Archipiélago Chiloe.
Chile (ibacacheburgos@gmail.com)
3
The existence of knowledge at the family level allows for the detection of
imbalances within the family, such as fear in boys and girls; it’s an interesting
relationship with nature, to have the perception of the contribution of small animals not
only as food but also as beings that influence our emotional and spiritual balance. The
example of the "Gallino-spirometry" technique for diagnosing fear, used in the inner
islands of Chiloe, especially by people of Chono ancestry, is a case in point.
In that "canoe-house" travel wise, older adults along with younger adults that submerge
into the "sea-land" to provide sustenance, while semi-naked children hover by the fire of
the "canoe-house" where small animals are raised in mutual contact with species often
times very different than their own. It is a dynamic space; a space where the guidelines
for upbringing are maintained throughout time but nevertheless carry the challenges
these realities implicate.
The Chono culture still exists in this form of conceiving territorial and cultural
spaces, and there the patterns of upbringing are different from those in communities
considered to be more Williche, and obviously even more from those observed in
Spanish-Chilean mestizo culture. In the latter, upbringing patterns have been developed
towards achieving exit from the home. The notion that success can be found outside of
this territory where the values and standards of development are different, and where
the male figure gains greater importance have been deeply instilled in younger
generations. In the end, these families are dramatically changed and downsized when
their children begin to migrate as a result of the insurmountable pressure placed on them
by society to meet these expectations, which begins at a very young age. As a result:

4. Jaime Ibacache
Medical Doctor Fellow, Ashoka.
Archipiélago Chiloe.
Chile (ibacacheburgos@gmail.com)
4
the old are not so wise anymore and believe they now know less than their children –
finding themselves alone in territorial spaces where death becomes a reality.
Between these forms of upbringing and the relationship with nature, these
families can be found scattered throughout the islands and in very remote rural areas,
where the syncretic matrix between the Judeo-Christian and native worldviews creates
an understanding of parenting and the world based on a form of hybridity, which is often
very complicated to understand. However, despite the influences of Christianity through
constant missionary circuits, or missiones circulares, which public health and education
policies in the islands draw their foundations from, families continue their relationship
with nature where respect for such spaces is the foundation to parenting and upbringing.

5. To add to this, the existence of Western knowledge that has infiltrated the wood-burning
Jaime Ibacache
Medical Doctor Fellow, Ashoka.
Archipiélago Chiloe.
Chile (ibacacheburgos@gmail.com)
5
stoves, bright teapots, and cooking pots in the home (transferred first via institutions
such as schools and health clinics), can coexist harmoniously or in conflict. Today, when
people from different generations share worldviews and approaches it often creates
tension and conflict.
The Chaiguen water, or agua de Chaiguen, for example, is part of this knowledge where
young adult women reproduce the wisdom of their elders and share this knowledge. See
video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYXtRgMQD6o
The process of immediate prenatal and postnatal care also share a relationship
of enculturation with the existence of mythological beings that inhabit these so-called
spaces and the nature they possess. Women healers, voyaging midwives, and other
figures mired in anonymity, continue to shape the standards of upbringing beginning
from the intrauterine stage. The process of caring and handling of newborns is related to
an equilibrium with all that is nature, the material and immaterial.
These women are influencing the future of care through the use of the
environment as a form of "birth canal" that extends well into the postpartum period.
Nonetheless, we must be careful of anything that might interfere with adequate and
proper growth.
This level of care is fundamental in ritual practices within the family structure,
where boys and girls learn to participate from a very young age by recognizing powerful

6. Jaime Ibacache
Medical Doctor Fellow, Ashoka.
Archipiélago Chiloe.
Chile (ibacacheburgos@gmail.com)
6
plants and herbs, appropriate foods, and adequate environments for giving birth, in an
effort to prevent a “blockage” in the process of life.
Women are at the center of many aspects of bordemar (sea border) culture, and
can often be found where fertility dances like the Pincoya (female being) announcing
abundance or scarcity, and where the Pincoy (male being) goes unnoticed – perhaps
because it never existed there before the arrival of the concept of duality to these coastal
areas.
However, in Chono sailors’ islands where the "canoe-house" navigates the "sea-earth”
there seems to be a more masculine force driving the process of upbringing,
independent of the sex (mother-mother, grandmother-grandfather). Here, the Ngen,
owners of spaces not domesticated, support the values of a dynamic upbringing. The
Chauko, a male Ngen believed to be the protector of the waters, can generate wellbeing
or ailment in islanders depending on the respect it receives.
No one knows how or where the Chauko was acculturated into the Trauco to
assume new roles in the nurturing and protection of young women; the Fiura –
acculturated from the Shumpall – was originally thought of as the caretaker of the rivers,
but today roams the islands filled with guilt perpetrated by society for the disappearance
of young people in the deep ocean waters.
Syncretism maintains balance when it is developed on the basis of autonomy for
the development of the culture.

7. Jaime Ibacache
Medical Doctor Fellow, Ashoka.
Archipiélago Chiloe.
Chile (ibacacheburgos@gmail.com)
7
Hegemonies and ethnocentrism assault the process of development, impacting
the growth and advancement towards diversity.
The process of parenting is a space filled with beings that in balance do not lead
to a loss of the spirit. Parenting is the strength of the Tüwun and the Kupalme, which
dynamically sail or walk sea borders gathering, planting, and harvesting, as well as
learning and socializing. The Tüwun is a territorial space, a knowledge system, which is
part of an individual and community where culture is reproduced, and thus is a place of
protection. On the other hand, the Kupalme, is the lineage where enculturation is
transferred and alliances are created between families, and is considered a process that
protects life and good living.
These dynamic spaces, where wise people are transmitting their knowledge
through their life stories are places where life is understood in more ecological,
supportive, reciprocal, and respectful ways. "I do not offend any neighbor" (Don
Eugenio. Achao Island). See video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UBGp5oz9qo
How are the biomedical, Judeo-Christian and neoliberal cultures impacting all
of this? How does the socio-cultural matrix of these land and sea territories
defend itself consciously or unconsciously?
I will continue navigating…