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This text is of great relevance, since it is the first known Mapuche grammar, written in 1606, by the Jesuit Luis de Valdivia, who, after his priestly ordination, was sent to the viceroyalty of Peru. For a short time, he remained in Cuzco and in the doctrine of Juli, the first of the Jesuits in the Indies, to later be professor of Philosophy and novice teacher at the Colegio de San Pablo de Lima, between 1591 and 1593.
He was part of the first expedition of the Company that went to Chile, at the head of which was Father Baltasar Piñas. According to Valdivia himself, the first thing he and his fellow Jesuits did was learn the language of the indigenous people. Thus, from this document it is possible to trace the basic premises of Jesuit missionary work, as well as the points on which the greatest emphasis was placed.
With the aim of evangelizing the Mapuches and stopping the continuous uprisings, in Lima he devised and promoted a project to achieve peace: The defensive war that consisted of establishing a border between the Spanish and the Mapuches on the Biobío River. Valdivia, through the intercession of Viceroy Juan de Mendoza y Luna, traveled to Madrid to present his thesis before Felipe III and the Council of the Indies. His plan was approved in 1610 and Valdivia was appointed to lead the Jesuit province of Chile.
His experience in the Kingdom of Chile allowed him to compose this extensive grammar, which takes the Nebrisense method as its starting point, and a Mapuche-Spanish vocabulary of some 2,800 entries. This work was reprinted in Seville in 1684 and, in facsimile edition, in 1887, thanks to the work of the German philologist Julio Platzmann (1832-1902).

Digital Resources
Biography of Luis de Valdivia