Winter solstice marks a new beginning and the renewal of life in nature and among people. The event is celebrated among original peoples through the performance of rituals and spiritual ceremonies of renewal and purification to celebrate as the sun approaches the Earth which signals the time when a new planting begins.

It is the most numerous indigenous people in Chile, representing 78% of those who identify themselves as indigenous. The Mapuche People today are located from the Biobío River and its tributary, the Queuco River, to the north (Biobío region), to Chiloé (Los Lagos region), to the south.

The Mapuche worldview is rich and diverse, and is related to the ordering of the world, the forms of material and symbolic expression that is expressed in rites, ceremonies and in nature.

The Mapuche cultural heritage is very vast. In its immaterial form, it is constituted, among other aspects, by the Mapuzungun language, by knowledge of nature and the relationship between men, orality, and spiritual and healing practices, as well as by religious practices and beliefs.

is the Mapuche celebration of the return of the sun and is sometimes called the Mapuche New Year. It takes place on the June solstice (the Winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere), the shortest day of the year in the indigenous home of the Mapuche people. Frequently, We Tripantu (Mapudungun tr: new year) is used as a synonym for Wiñoy Tripantu, but some speakers of the Mapuche language Mapudungun use We Tripantu to refer to the New Year of the Gregorian calendar (January 1) and Wiñoy Tripantu for the celebration of the June solstice.

Many variations of the term Wiñoy Tripantu exist, such as Wiñol xipantu, Wvñol xipantu, Wiñol Txipantu and Wüñoy Tripantü.

Wiñoy Tripantu is celebrated with a ceremony on the shortest day of the year, during which various families or even various communities may come together to celebrate communally. All members of the community have a participatory role in the ceremony, which may involve songs, dances, a communal meal, and offerings to the land. Typically, a wood fire is lit, which traditionally is kept burning until sunrise the following day. Elders of the family or community tell stories with philosophical, cultural, and political undertones, as a method of transmitting Mapuche culture and history from one generation to the next. The ceremony ends with a communal breakfast.

Although Wiñoy Tripantu has been celebrated in Wallmapu (now southern Argentina and Chile) for centuries, it has seen a particular revival since the late twentieth century, associated with a broader revival of Mapuche cultural practices and land claims.