From AD 1550 to 1850, the Araucanian polity in southern Chile was a center of political resistance to the intruding Spanish empire. In this book, Tom D. Dillehay examines the resistance strategies of the Araucanians and how they used mound building and other sacred monuments to reorganize their political and culture life in order to unite against the Spanish. Drawing on anthropological research conducted over three decades, Dillehay focuses on the development of leadership, shamanism, ritual, and power relations. His study combines developments in social theory with the archaeological, ethnographic, and historical records. Both theoretically and empirically informed, this book is a fascinating account of the only indigenous ethnic group to successfully resist outsiders for more than three centuries and to flourish under these conditions.

Review of the hardback: '… I recommend this book to readers interested in South American archaeology and ethnography, as well as to those interested in other mind-building cultures … an empirically rich contribution to explorations of heterarchy, political economies and 'corporate' polities in prehistory. The book should stimulate creative thinking about shamanism, mound-building and the nature of political ties in other mound-building societies both in the ancient New World and further afield.' Cambridge Archaeological Journal