The genocidal impulses that led to the creation of Creole nation-states in the Southern Cone of South America remain problematically persistent and largely unapologetic. Drawing on a recent one-year fieldwork experience accompanying different processes and struggles across Wallmapu (Mapuche territory), I discuss the limits of state recognition in face of ongoing Winka (settler) colonial violence and its concomitant efforts to criminalize and erase the Mapuche. I explore why state provided solutions to the so-called ‘conflict’ systematically fail to implement and respect Indigenous structures of self-governance. In Mapuche ontology, ‘word’ (zugu) holds a moral value, and moreover, entails ontological consequences (Course 2018). Conversely, the inherently changing political landscape characteristic of neoliberal democracy, while setting the agenda for political negotiations, systematically fails to adhere to its stated attempts to expand participation. In this regard, an oft-mentioned expression, relating to the texture of the colonial relations since the beginning of occupation –that ‘the word of the Winka has no worth’- becomes actual once again, translating into a widespread jeopardizing of Indigenous lived worlds. In this scenario of uncertainty, communities perceive and define their role as defending the land and life itself. When nothing else is left, what sense does it make to keep accommodating the liberal constraints of states predicated upon the eradication of Indigenous existences?