Abstract

This study proposes a critical reading of the 1953 Judicial Archives of the city of Valdivia, referring to Juana Catrilaf, a Mapuche woman aged 27, who was tried for the murder of her grandmother, Antonia Millalef, 84, known machi (Mapuche shaman) of Chile´s X Region. The case, rich in intercultural and gender implications, is analyzed from decolonized, heterogeneous, intersectional perspectives. The case has set important judicial and cultural precedents in a country that has yet to ratify article 169 of the ILO. The study engenders legal discourse in relation to Chilean criminal culture of the 50s. The case´s expert team was built, among other professionals, by Alejandro Lipschutz, a Jewish immigrant who had written an important corpus of indigenist literature against ethnic and racial stigmatization at that time. The defense was based on three aspects: 1) the criminal responsibility of the accused ( irresistible force), 2) the “evil” character the murdered Mapuche shaman, and 3) the "savage” beliefs about the healers, shamans and witches, thus justifying witch hunts in human history. The case exonerates Catrilaf for killing a "witch", as civilizations have done against "all primitive peoples" and as recommended by the Bible.