Pascual Coña

Pascual Coña (late 1840s – October 28, 1927) was a Mapuche man from the region of Budi Lake, Chile, who narrated in Mapudungun the story of his life and the Mapuche customs of the time to the Capuchin missionary Ernesto Wilhelm de Moesbach.

Moesbach and Coña's conversations stretched over the course of four years. In the long Chilean winters, Moesbach would go to Coña's house and write down dictation from Coña, or document the conversations the two had. The final product was the bilingual book Vida y costumbres de los indígenas araucanos en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX ("Life and Customs of the Indigenous Araucanians in the Second Half of the 19th Century"), a text that relates not only Coña's life but also the customs of the Mapuche, for which it is considered a very important source for the study of the Mapuche people and their language in the 19th century.