The people group are known as Licanlantay or Likanantaí the inhabitants of the territory). They are properly called Atacameno. Their ancestral language is Kunza, but since 1978 all members speak Spanish, so Kunza was considered dormant. Today, Spanish is their language, like most of the people in Chile. They live in the Atacama Desert in Argentina, northern Chile, Peru, and southern Bolivia.
They live in villages and their social and political organization is characterized by dividing their villages into Ayllus and in each of them there is a mayor, whose insignia is a cane with a silver fist.
They make their living from tourism and small-scale agriculture. They also raise guanacos, alpacas, goats, and sheep. Some of them still maintain some traditions, such as weaving and goldsmithing.
Today, some Atacamenos are trying to recover and revitalize the native Kunza language, developing training courses that include all the necessary teaching materials for learning this language with the support of different institutions. In 2019, they launched the Kunza dictionary application, which includes Spanish and English translations of around 1200 words.
They hold animistic beliefs based on ancestral traditions such as the inhalation of cebil, a hallucinogen, which they say gives them the power of birds, felines, and snakes. They still offer worship to the sun and built altars in high places such as the Licancabur Volcano, considered a sacred mountain. They believe in reincarnation and in an afterlife, for this reason they buried their dead with everything necessary for the long journey that awaited them.
Their religious festivities are the carnival, the cleaning of canals, the cattle flowering, and the worship of the “Tata” (father) ancestors. In these rituals, framed in the annual agro-pastoral cycle, traditional Atacameno rites stand out, mixed with Catholic patronal feasts, Since each community has a patron saint who protects the town, the communities create their own ceremonial calendars in which they order and indicate the dates corresponding to each milestone, meeting and festivity of the current year.
They also have a strong Evangelical community. If they are willing to submit to the Holy Spirit, they can be used by God to evangelize the lost in South America.
Pray that the people of Atacama will recognize that the future life they believe in is in eternity with Christ.
Pray that through the interest of the Atacamenos in making their culture known, doors may be opened to share the gospel.
Pray that there may be in the heart of a church in Chile to approach this desert region and spread the Word of God.
Pray for the Atacamenos to have an encounter with the true God, the one who created the earth, the sun and the creatures that they venerate.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacameños
https://mayurutour.com/turismo-cultural-norte-de-chile/atacamenos-pueblo-originario-chile/
https://www.memoriachilena.gob.cl/602/w3-article-722.html
http://www.serindigena.org/index.php/es/norte/atacameno/27-pueblo-atacameno/62-origen
Scripture Prayers for the Atacameno in Chile.
| Profile Source: Joshua Project |
