The aim of this study is to determine, qualitatively and quantitatively, the nature and extent of lexical borrowing from indigenous languages, as refl ected in a representative sample of a festive register Chilean newspaper, La Cuarta. For this purpose, lexical items from that origin employed with festive intentionality in a corpus of 375 pages of that newspaper were gathered. These lexical items were used to assess the relative vitality of words of Indian origin documented in the corpus (measured by their frequency of occurrence, their capacity to originate derivatives in the host language, their capacity to originate lexical families, and their value in the semantic fi elds that they share with synonymous indigenous borrowings documented in the corpus) and etymological origin (in this respect, the lexicogenetic process undergone by indigenous borrowings to convey their festiveconnotations). As a result, 132 lexical items of that origin and their derivatives were documented in the corpus. The last section of the article consists of a lexicographic inventory of the Indian loanwords documented and their Spanish derivatives.El propósito del presente estudio es establecer, cuantitativa y cualitativamente, el carácter que asume la presencia de las lenguas indígenas en el léxico empleado en el registro festivo del diario chileno La Cuarta. Para tal propósito se relevaron las unidades léxicas de esa procedencia empleadas con intencionalidad festiva en un corpus de 375 páginas del mencionado periódico. Las voces y locuciones así recopiladas se analizaron desde dos puntos de vista: vitalidad relativa (medida respecto de su frecuencia de empleo, su capacidad para originar familias léxicas y para establecer relaciones de sinonimia al interior del corpus) y origen etimológico (atendiendo también a los recursos neológicos implicados en su empleo). Comoresultado se identifi caron y procesaron 132 lexías correspondientes a nuestra defi nición de neologismo estilístico de base indígena. La última sección del artículo consiste en un inventario lexicográfico de los indigenismos recopilados y sus derivados.