When is Indigenous People's Day?
This public holiday in Chile takes place on the Winter Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. It will be observed on either June 21st or 22nd.
This date was decreed in 1998 but was established as a legal holiday in 2021.
Inti Raymi in Quechua, Machaq Mara in Aymara, Huata Mosoj in Colla, WeTripantu in Mapudungun and Xóosink in the language of the Selk’nam are the ways of referring to this day in the different languages.
History of Indigenous People's Day
On June 17th 2021, the upper house (Senate of Chile, Senado in Spanish) unanimously passed the law that establishes that, from 2022, the day of the winter solstice will be a holiday in Chile. Monday June 21st 2021 was also declared a holiday.
Several countries in the Americas honour their indigenous populations on the winter solstice
In the Southern Hemisphere, the longest night of the year takes place on June 21st, the winter solstice. Since ancient times, knowledge of the changing seasons was vital to farmers in the region. The winter solstice marked a welcome end to Winter and also the start of the new agricultural season.
Did you know?
The word Solstice comes from the Latin ‘solstitium’ meaning ‘Sun stands still’ because the movement of the Sun’s path north or south appears to stop before changing direction.
The Winter Solstice has been a public holiday in Bolivia since 2010.
Note that the holiday on October 12, which also celebrates indigenous peoples remains as a public holiday. That date is the historical date of the arrival of Europeans to the new world when Christoph Columbus landed in the Bahamas on October 12th 1492.
