Gualichu

The available sources do not provide a cosmogonic origin narrative for Gualichu. Within Mapuche and Tehuelche cosmological frameworks the entity functions as a culturally authoritative explanation for unexplained suffering and mischance rather than as a creator or antagonist deity with a recorded origin story. Sources contrast Gualichu with the absence of a single named god of evil in these traditions and place it among subterranean, unseen harmful forces (see also related concepts such as wekufe).

Sources consistently report that Gualichu is a purely spiritual being for which there is no depiction or cult image. No anthropomorphic or visual attributes, iconography, or material representation are recorded in the provided materials; the entity is described as non-corporeal and without a documented physical form.

Gualichu is credited with causing disease, calamity, and general evil happenings. It is described as able to enter or infest people's bodies or objects, producing conditions that required ritual expulsion: when Gualichu 'could enter people's body or objects an exorcism had to be performed to expel him.' The lexical extension of the name to gualicho (a curse) and the verb engualichar ('to cast an evil spell') indicates that the entity's influence can be framed as a cast spell or jinx attached to people or things.