Roguish Indian

When lifting the sculpture, the mechanism is activated.

The rogue Indian or the Picarón or also Pichulonco is a traditional Chilean handicraft. It is generally made of poplar wood, being used mainly for jokes and jokes, as well as an ornament. It consists of the image of an aborigine with colorfully painted Mapuche attire and a wide smile that, when raised, shows an erect penis..

History

«Guacolda», the female version of the Indio Pícaro.

Some sources cite that it was created on March 16, 1980 by Jorge Medina Ramírez (born in 1955), a self-taught artisan who, together with his friends, and as a challenge from his employer, had to copy an articulated Apache doll that he hid his attributes under a loincloth and so he sent it as a joke to a friend from Santiago. But over time he gained fame and with the large number of orders he decided to make mass productions.

An event that spread internationally was when the Vice President of the United States, Dan Quayle, bought one of these crafts in Santiago during his visit to Chile in March 1990. On that occasion, he was traveling from Valparaíso to Santiago when he stopped at an artisan stall in Casablanca:

These statuettes, which generally do not exceed 15 centimeters in height, began to be sold in Santiago in the early 1990s, quickly becoming popular. In the municipal market of Temuco, a large number of this figure is sold because of its identity with the Mapuche people, and here you can find carved figures that exceed 1.50 meters.

Despite being a fairly popular craft, there are also detractors of this singular figure, such as the renowned Mapuche ceramic artisan Sergio San Martín, who considers the statuette as a mockery of Mapuche culture and also as a way to make money easy.

In 2010, a vote began to house traditional Chilean objects in the so-called Bicentennial Capsule, in which various objects were kept so that in 100 more years the inhabitants of the future can remember the ancient traditions and when they unearth it in the year 2110 they will meet a rogue Indian.

Variants

You can also find the female partner who when raised shows a vulva and some nickname her as Guacolda or naughty Indian or also the Rogue.

A version of Indio Pícaro also appears in a clip by journalist and activist Steve Anderson. With a satirical sales campaign, he sent a message to the electoral campaign of the 2016 United States presidential election.

In the year 2022, the singer Rosalía, while on tour in Chile, received a roguish Indian decorated with diamonds in allusion to the lyrics of one of her songs: “Caro como que tiene una diamante en la tipa”.

Manufacturing and structure

To model its body, the artisans work a piece of wet and hollowed out poplar and little by little the small piece of wood acquires its traditional physiognomy. Then they paint it with black aniline and brown bitumen to highlight their features and clothing.

After a cylindrical stick of the same wood or of raulí, they cut small pieces of three centimeters to shape the hidden secret of the Indio Pícaro.

Later, they carve the feet separately and then join the limbs and the cylinder with a string in the hollowed-out center of the character. They hold it with an internal pin and just by lifting the Indian shows his attributes.

Mechanism

The doll is hollow and misleads buyers by appearing to be only one piece. The victim then attempts to lift the doll by obviously grabbing it by the upper sides. However, the legs remain glued to the ground due to inertia and weight, activating a mechanism that activates the appearance of his penis to his surprise and amusement.

Animation

There was a 5-episode cartoon series developed in Flash by Local Group under the name Pichulonco, a series that recounted the adventures of the statuette since it escaped from a artisan center to travel the world. It was an internet phenomenon in the 2000s. > could not win a competitive fund from Fondart and therefore the project did not evolve in its second season.