Tours and Activities:

The Roots of a People

The Araucanía Regional Museum presents a complete collection on the past of the region, where the Mapuche and the colonists' legacy has written part of its history.

Regional museums are in charge of preserving the legacy of past generations in a community. The Araucanía Museum is one of the institutions that faithfully complies with this command. It protects and, in turn, displays a significant heritage of the Mapuche culture and regional history.

This important museum was created by request of the residents of Temuco from the government in 1938. Thus, the museum was opened in 1940 and, in 1970, it was moved to its present location: the house that used to belong to Carlos Thiers Spielmans’ family and which was declared National Monument in 1997.

As it was to be expected, the house has been refurbished to shelter the collections. The old garage was conditioned as a Mapuche culture animation room, an interactive place visited by students and the public in general.

The Show

The valuable collection of this museum is made up by a complete collection of cultural heritage from the Mapuche-Pehuenche communities, the Spanish immigrants, Europeans in general and Chilean colonists.

About 3,000 cultural objects make up the archeological, ethnographic, pictorial, photographic and historical displays from 1400 to 1800. One of the most outstanding items is the collection of Mapuche textiles and jewelry dating from the XIXth century.

Furthermore, visitors may appreciate the Hispanic collection formed by archeological materials from the times of the conquest (1550-1599) and the colonies (1600-1810). Axes and stone mallets, stone balls for the boleadoras and wooden spears with metal points, evidence the resistance to the arrival of the conquerors. The Spanish answer is represented by fire weapons such as muskets, single-shot pistols and cannon balls, amongst other daily life artifacts.

Advancing in the historical chronology, a collection of objects related to the colonization period carried out in the XIXth century is displayed. The main cities of the Araucanía region were founded in that period and a detailed scale model of that territory and the regional relief with maps of the Spanish foundations, the forts and missions, the cities founded in the XIXth century and the communication ways may also be observed.

Lastly, a small locomotive used for the construction and maintenance of “Las Raíces" railway –the longest in South America- may be observed in the spacious museum lawn.

In addition to its permanent show, visitors may appreciate several temporary exhibitions about art, natural science and mineralogy, to name some branches that turn the museum into a real space for cultural expression.

See also: Hotels in Temuco and other accommodation venues