Indigenous Confederation of Chile

The Indigenous Confederation of Chile is named in a book that Amalfitano recalls and rereads, attributed to Lonko Kilapan, who presents himself as its president. The book’s claims about Mapuche history and Bernardo O’Higgins initially give the Confederation the appearance of an organized cultural institution; Amalfitano’s doubts then unsettle that appearance, making the organization part of the novel’s inquiry into fabricated credentials and political authorship.

Identity and Presentation

Amalfitano remembers a short volume by Kilapan, published in Santiago in 1978 and titled O’Higgins Is Araucanian. Its subtitle promises seventeen proofs drawn from the secret history of Araucania. Kilapan’s stated credentials include being Historian of the Race, President of the Indigenous Confederation of Chile, and Secretary of the Academy of the Araucanian Language. The Confederation is thus introduced not through an account of its membership or activities, but through a title in a credential list that lends institutional weight to the book’s historical argument.

The Book’s Historical Claim

The prologue, attributed to José R. Pichinual, Cacique of Puerto Saavedra, presents O’Higgins as the legitimate son of Ambrosio O’Higgins and an Araucanian woman. It says their marriage followed Admapu law and the Gapitun ceremony. In this framing, Kilapan’s book and the Confederation’s purported president participate in a revision of national history: the organization’s name helps place the book’s claims within an Indigenous historical authority rather than treating them as an isolated speculation.

Amalfitano’s Doubts

On rereading the book, Amalfitano questions why its prologue explains the word litrang but leaves terms such as Admapu and Epeutufe unexplained. That unevenness makes him consider the possibility that Kilapan did not write the book—or might not exist. His suspicion expands from the individual author to the institutions named in the credentials: perhaps there is no Indigenous Confederation of Chile and no Academy of the Araucanian Language. The possibility that all are invented remains Amalfitano’s conjecture, not a confirmed disclosure.

Political and Literary Significance

Amalfitano imagines that the book’s prose could belong to Pinochet, Aylwin, Lagos, Frei, or a right-wing neo-fascist, and concludes that its style seems capable of representing political factions across Chile. The Confederation consequently occupies an unstable position: it is invoked as a source of cultural legitimacy, yet may itself be part of a constructed authorial identity. The episode connects institutional names, historical claims, and political language without resolving which elements are authentic. Its uncertainty is central to the effect: a reader encounters the Confederation both as a claimed bearer of collective authority and as one of the possible fictions through which authority is manufactured.