Like many other archeological and historical museums, the Regional Museum of Araucanía in the Temuco city was founded with one specific purpose: to save and preserve the heritage of the past generations and spread the knowledge about their culture. Most showpieces in this museum tell a story of the Mapuche, the Indian people that have inhabited the territory of today’s Temuco since the 16th century. Having arrived at those lands, the Spanish called the inhabitants “Araucanians”, and this is where the name of the museum comes from.
The modern museum was opened with the help of the city residents. In 1938 they addressed the government with a request to create a place for keeping all the historical artifacts. Their dream was to spread the knowledge about the history, customs and culture of the indigenous inhabitants among the younger generation and anyone who would be interested in the household and traditions of these tribes. A long-desired opening took place in 1940. However, the exhibit items found their permanent home only in 1970 when they had been moved to the former residence of Carlos Thiers’s family. Later on, in 1996, the museum building together with the surrounding park was recognized as a Chilean national historical landmark.
Its collection boasts 3000 exhibit items of different periods, starting from the time of the Pitrén culture and its ceramics handiwork of the 2nd – 10th centuries CE. The later period, 12th – 16th centuries, is represented in the museum by ceramics and a canoe, more than 5 meters long, carved from a singular trunk of a laurel tree. Most of the collection consists of household items, tools, and weapons used by the local inhabitants and the Spanish immigrants during their struggle for local lands. Indian axes, cast clubs, wooden spears with metalheads on the one hand, and Spanish muskets, single-shot pistols, and cannonballs on the other. Clothes items and jewelry of the Mapuche tribes from the 19th century are especially valuable to the museum.