Mapuche organizations have generated a visual strategy for the conformation of an ethnicity through the design of icons, which identify them ethnically, and which have been legitimized as symbols of the Mapuche through different dissemination techniques. Faced with an enormous iconological production, it is discovered that the elemental components of this iconology are a very limited number, which we will call key icons, which are combined in an almost unlimited way in all kinds of supports. This research focused on identifying and understanding the mechanisms and processes of this phenomenon of iconization of Mapuche ethnicity, which initially operates within the spaces in which Mapuche organizations live.
The effectiveness of this iconic strategy of establishing the Mapuche has achieved such success in its dissemination that Chilean society fully recognizes them and in turn feeds them into new images, which it recomposes in multiple settings, exhibiting them as the true icons of the Mapuche.