FROM DISPOSSESSION TO HEALING: The Visionary Poetry of Adriana Paredes Pinda¹

Adriana Paredes Pinda is a Williche poet, machi (traditional healer), and teacher from the Kalfullanka community in Riñinahue, Los Lagos Region, Chile. In her poetry collections Üi (2005) and Parias zugun (2014), the overwhelming energy of her machi visions shapes a struggle and, at the same time, a reencounter with the mestizo and outcast identity of the poetic subject, the burning paradox of the double linguistic heritage - Spanish and Mapudungun, the sensuality of the body in which she revives a feminine genealogy and the connection to nature, and, finally, the decolonial protest against the penetration of neoliberalism into Mapuche territory and waters, as well as in people’s mind. This chapter proposes Pinda’s poetry as tracing a descent into the depths of the psyche, visualizing dispossession, and embarking on a path towards healing, through the sensitive and visionary words that connect with her role as a machi.