Marichiweu
I’m a descendant of the Mapuche, indigenous people who have lived in Chile for years. They fought against the Spaniards when they came to take their land. When the Spaniards came to conquer the South of Chile, they found out that this tribe was a tribe of warriors. They resisted the conquering for nearly a century until they ended the war with peaceful negotiations. The Mapuches troops used flags painted with blue, black, and white, as well as a star in the middle that represents Venus. This flag is called Lautaro’s flag. Lautaro’s flag has a star called Guñelve (Wünelfe in Mapudungun). It is a symbol from the Mapuche iconography which can be described as an octagram, or a star with eight points. This symbol is also called the “Star of Arauco.” (See image below)The Mapuches have their language which is called Mapudungun. Chile has some cities and counties that use this language, such as Talcahuano, Ñuble, Huechuraba, Curacautin, and others.
One of my most valued memories is when my dad always used to say “Mari Mari Peñi” to me, and I always remembered it because it was easy to pronounce. This phrase means “Hi brother” or “Hi friend.”One of the low points of education in Chile is that they don’t teach this language, which means it might be lost in the future. For this reason, this idea inspired me to create a typeface that can bring pride to this rich culture. Using the star that represents Venus, I designed serifs of the letters. This typeface is called “Marichiweu, " meaning “Ten times we’ll win.” This is a project that I have been working on for nearly two years after a lot of reading and investigating about the language. According to the experts, the Mapuche alphabet is divided into three sections based on how to write the letters and how they sound. For this project, I’m following a parameter called “Unified Alphabet” which combines our language with their language. Here are some results.
