For a number of years I have been travelling around Chile, documenting rural life and learning about my country’s many traditional cultures.
This April, I went to Lonquimay in Araucanía, just north of my home in Pucón, to photograph the annual Fiesta del Piñón. This festival celebrates the harvest of the pehuen (or piñón in Spanish), a pine nut collected from araucanía trees that has long been central to the diet of the indigenous Mapuche people who live here, the Pehuenche.
While the pehuen is the reason for the festival, I attended to photograph the jineteada, a type of rodeo where riders compete to ride an untamed horse for as long as possible. It’s a meeting place for riders from across the region, whether they’re Pehuenche, gauchos or just campesinos (country people), and is a major demonstration of the centrality of horse culture to this part of Chile.
Here are my photos of the day.
As the dust settled on this jineatada, I was reminded how it remains remains an important part of Chilean life wherever there are horses. Events like this one in Lonquimay keep inspiring me to document the country’s rural traditions, and explore new corners of the country – as well as coming back next year to capture the peheun harvest in full.
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