Rodolfo Casamiquela: The historian who assured that “The Mapuches do not have rights to Argentine lands”
10/22/2017
Informa de Patrulla
Rodolfo Casamiquela was a paleontologist, archaeologist, Doctor of Science, researcher, teacher, historian and writer. He left around twenty books and 400 research papers. He dedicated his life to the study of the origins of Patagonia. He was born in Ingeniero Jacobacci (province of Río Negro) in 1932 and died in Cipolletti in 2008. He was the author of numerous publications on the origins of human settlement in Patagonia and promoted the recognition of the Tehuelche ethnic group as a native people of the northern part of the Patagonia region.
The historian Rodolfo Casamiquela was harsh with the Mapuches, who "scratched" him several times. He says that "they have no real interest in safeguarding indigenous culture, but are rather 'piqueteros'." He spoke of fighting to rescue the language of the Tehuelche people from oblivion. And that worried him much more than the insults he receives when he wants to talk about the story. "If they define themselves as Mapuches, they are Chileans and if they are Chileans they have no right to the land of Argentina," said Casamiquela.
He graduated as a National Mining Expert, while continuing his training in Patagonian topics in the library of the Ethnographic Museum. A scholarship took him to Belgium and, upon his return, he decided to pursue a career in Paleontology at the University of La Plata. He worked for Conicet until the military coup of 1966. He decided to settle in Chile, where he graduated with a doctorate in Biology at the end of the 60s. He returned to Río Negro, where he created the Río Negro Scientific Research Center, based in Viedma.
In 1978, Casamiquela created the Ameghino Foundation in Viedma to promote regional research and the study of agriculture, geology, mining, fishing and biology. His research works include iconological and ethnological studies of Patagonia, rock art and Tehuelche grammar,
In 1965 he received the first National Prize for Anthropology and the third for Biology from the Undersecretary of Culture of the Nation. He served as a professor at different universities and academic institutions in Chile and Argentina. He was an emeritus professor at the National University of Southern Patagonia and nominated for an honorary doctorate.
“Casamiquela had different episodes where he was harshly criticized for investigations in which he maintained that the Tehuelches were the true original settlers of Chubut and northern Patagonia. His studies led him to affirm that the Mapuches crossed the border and invaded the Tehuelches in the 17th century, a people whom he considered practically extinct.
“This position earned him severe criticism from aboriginalists from Argentina and Chile, who on several occasions prevented the researcher from completing his dissertations in universities and institutions. The root of the discussion is that Casamiquela considered the Mapuches, Chileans, when it comes to “pre-existing” peoples that inhabited the mountain range before the political geographical delimitations that we currently know. However, it was a basis that served judicially to evict several indigenous communities. Beyond the controversies over this extreme position, his contributions to the knowledge of Patagonia acquire special relevance; which is expressed in a work of great extension and depth.”
His opinion expressed almost 10 years after his death
-What led you to study about this?
– My concern for indigenous things began when I was 14 years old. I went to study in Buenos Aires and one day, in the National Library, I started reading Mapuche, without knowing that in my town (Ingeniero Jacobacci) half of the kids my age spoke that language, because then they hid their origin. Not even the teachers knew. So, when I returned, it was a pleasant surprise to discover that the laborers who baled the wool in a commercial house where my father worked were of indigenous origin. I had a fantastic summer with them, because I began to write down the first things about their language. At the age of 16, always accompanied by the indigenous people, he was already building the first museum referring to his history.
-What have you been able to learn about them?
– I have met hundreds of indigenous people and all the Tehuelche speakers in Patagonia. I studied and learned that first came the Paleolithic Tehuelche world, very ancient. The ancestors of their ancestors date back to 10,000 or 12,000 years ago and evolved in Patagonia. Long after the arrival of the Spanish, around 1600, the horse allowed the Tehuelches to dominate the entire Pampas and Neuquén area. At that same time Mapuchization began. There are differences between them.
The Patagonian giants are not a fantasy, but rather the Tehuelches, who reached almost two meters in height and weighed 150 kilos, with dark complexions and Asian eyes, who lived by hunting and dressed in skins. The Araucanos or Mapuches, however, are a race of medium height, cultivators of Andean culture, who had houses made of wood and straw and worked wonderfully with weaving and silversmithing; They had a superior cultural trajectory, which the Tehuelches imitated.
-What was happening with the language?
– With the arrival of religion and name days, a transformation takes place in it. Then, the Tehuelche men, especially the caciques, in northern Patagonia, began to be bilingual. But the women continued speaking Tehuelche, some families even switched from Tehuelche to Spanish, without going through Mapuche. There was a religious syncretism and the Tehuelche became Mapuchized. But the Mapuche as a people were on the other side of the Cordillera.
-Do the descendants preserve the indigenous language?
– Today there are living descendants of great Tehuelche chiefs. There are only a few families, the others are descendants of Mapuches. The Ñanco, for example, are descendants of Sacamata, one of the most serious chiefs of northern Patagonia, born between 1870 and 1880. One of my teachers was the one who saved the Tehuelche language, since he was the last one who spoke it. His name was José María Cual (which in Tehuelche means neck). He died in 1960, aged 90. When I met him, I was a boy and he was blind. For many years we dedicated ourselves to the Tehuelche language and for this I want to pay the greatest tribute to this people, descendants of the oldest inhabitants of all of America.
-How?
– One day I swore to pay tribute to this unique town, saving everything I could from its history. Unfortunately I'm alone in all this. Descendants do not study their ancestors, because that means reading white people and there is a kind of rejection, a denial that is like cheating in life's solitaire. You can't move forward. So I am a plum teacher, that is, a scientist, who tells the story as it is told by science, anthropology. I do not make demagogic concessions. Therefore, if I say that there were no Mapuche here in 1865 and that they only arrived in 1890, I am saying what history is, I am not inventing it. Only others don't say it or say it differently. So I'm the bad guy.
-Is that why they give you escraches?
– Yes. But these people are not indigenous in the cultural sense, they are in the piquetero sense. They are politicians.
-What are they questioning you about?
– There are no questions. That's a pretext. You have to think about what they are looking for. If they define themselves as Mapuches they are Chileans and if they are Chileans they have no right to the land of Argentina. This is the key. So, as I explain that they are Chileans, I am the enemy. Any Chilean knows that the Mapuches are Chileans. Leaders know it too. But not youth. 99 percent of those who define themselves as Mapuche are of Tehuelche origin. But there have been many confusions due to language or surname. This is how identity is lost.
-Why would they have the need to feel like Mapuches if they are not?
– Because the word Mapuche is very attractive. It means people of the earth. If it is used as a symbol it is correct. I am also people of the earth. In 1960, as a tribute, the First Congress of the Araucanian Area of Argentina proposed that the Araucanians be called Mapuche as in Chile.
-What would be the answer if someone asked who the originators were?
– It would be necessary to see with respect to what. Upon the arrival of the Spanish it is one thing. The constitution of the Argentine State is another. Because in 1816 there were no Mapuches in Argentina. The first settled in the center of La Pampa in 1820 and in 1890, south of Limay Negro, the first settlers of Chilean origin were the Mapuches and the Chilotes. You have to distinguish this whole thing very subtly.
-Why do you mention the loss of identity?
– That is the most terrible thing. The grandchildren of my teachers, who knew what they were, today are all Mapuche. That is, the grandfather is pure Tehuelche, but the grandson is Mapuche. Then Patagonia lost its identity. This is a land of floods, because people arrive from other places every day. So, the teachers are not from here and it is very difficult to recreate that wonderful identity that - until 30 years ago - was the word, the open house, the hospitality, the security and the indigenous base, now faded by all this confusion that there is with the Mapuches. But until a few years ago the story was clear.
-What happens with the Tehuelche language?
– It is a dead language. He died in 1960. And there are no people interested in learning it. I did it because I was aware that my teacher, José María Cual, was one of the last to speak it. He communicated with me in Spanish and we could make translations from Mapuche to Tehuelche, review them for several years and pass them clean. He was aware that he was the only one left to speak that language. But he died before seeing the grammar. Today culture is lost. The descendants, for the most part, do not maintain the language. Even the names that are here, in the shops, are false. The vocabulary is wrong and that is my suffering. This worries me much more than the escraches. Indigenous people have to improve and professionalize themselves without losing their language of origin. In Argentina, the indigenous language has one generation left and no one cares about recovering it.
-What do you feel every time you say you are alone in this?
– You feel helplessness, because it is difficult to reach teaching and those who have political decision over it. When I go to teach at schools, the kids and teachers are amazed. At the end of the talks, the boys who have indigenous surnames who were shy come forward and feel good, because they are descendants of the great chiefs. The same thing happens when they know what the meanings of their names are in Mapuche, because the Tehuelches have no meanings. All of this can be done, but who bells the cat.
Source: El Chubut Newspaper – Azkintuwe Noticia