The Mapuche problem, by Carlos Manfroni (Infobae June 21th 2022
There is a deep-rooted tendency to think that what is now the American territory represented a kind of earthly paradise before the arrival of the Spanish, who, in accordance with that conviction, came to bring all evil to the continent and to subjugate the peaceful peoples natives who, until then, would live in a harmonious relationship with nature. It is a pity that study programs do not usually focus too much on the history of pre-Columbian cultures. Actually, they don't usually focus too much on history.
The so-called "original peoples" had the same spirit of conquest with respect to other American communities that drove many nations of the five continents to advance over others throughout the centuries. Therefore, this "original" is quite relative. How many peoples did the Incas subdue? In colloquial language, it is common to speak of the Inca empire, but in this case the term "empire" is not attributed the negative meaning with which it is usually used when referring to European culture.
In the surroundings of what is currently the capital of Peru, the culture of the Lima was settled from the beginning of the Christian era. The adobe pyramids they built are still visible there. Apparently, that town, which could have been the original one – who knows – and, in any case, long before the Incas, dissolved due to exhaustion of its vital capacity. However, thanks to violence and severed heads nailed to pikes, by the time the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro arrived in the 16th century, the Inca empire had spread from southern Colombia to northern Chile. For not a few ethnic groups, the arrival of the Spanish will have represented a relief, rather than a traumatic situation. Otherwise, it would not be explained how Hernán Cortés was able to triumph over Tenochtitlan, today Mexico City, with an army made up of 99% aboriginal peoples from the region; that is, less than 1% of Spaniards.
The idea that the indigenous allies with Cortés betrayed their Aztec brothers is an elaboration of European progressivism. There was no such brotherhood nor did there even exist a concept of "the indigenous", as not a few historians maintain, but around 50 peoples who, fed up with enduring the subjugation of the Mexica, rebelled. Cortes alone had the ability to organize the alliance for that rebellion.
Something similar, although less intense and longer in time, occurred in what is now the territory of Bolivia, with permanent ethnic confrontations. There, the Sakaka caciques maintained an implicit pact with the crown in the face of the risk of its collapse against their secular enemies, the Kirkyawi. There are historiographical works that collect in detail the legal demands that they used, such as an amparo that, in 1646, José Villca, governor and chief of the town of San José de Sakaka, presented to the Royal Court of Charcas for the lands “of the natives of Aransaya and Urinsaya of the ayllo Jilavi and Chaiquina”.
The "politically correct" history plays down the cruelty that certain civilizations exerted on others, before the European arrival; an indifference that, on the one hand, is aimed at showing that the only bad guys were the Spanish, but that actually has a racist meaning, as does the fact of bringing all these peoples together under the concept of Indians or aborigines. The underestimation of those pre-Columbian wars responds to the idea that, ultimately, all this was "an Indian thing", "something that should not interest us". In the same racist spirit, the world ignored the Rwandan genocide (in 1994!) and watched with indifference as the Hutus exterminated 70% of the Tutsis and raped nearly 500,000 women. But, of course, it was a massacre “among blacks”, and the culture of postmodernity is only interested in human rights violations that can be attributed to the Judeo-Christian civilization.
t is clear that the pre-Columbian civilizations, from a distance, inspire a certain romanticism. Even Rubén Darío composed a poem to Caupolicán, the famous Araucanian cacique – today Mapuche – who was executed by impalement, a cruel and horrible death, by the conquerors. What the Nicaraguan poet omits in his verses, because the culture of his time took it for granted, is that the large tree trunk that Caupolicán carried on his shoulders for two days and two nights represented a demand from his own Mapuche chiefs to recognize him. the leadership. And what the anti-European legend is silent about, and not precisely because it takes it for granted, is that Pedro de Valdivia, the governor of Chile and founder of its main cities, after being defeated in an ambush by the Mapuches, died skinned and devoured alive by they.
The Incas, despite their bravery, were amazed at the cruelty and lack of rules of the Mapuche, who they maintained did not respect authority, not even the paternal, and that is why they could not reach beyond the north of Chile, where the Araucanians put a stop to them.
On the pampas plain the pampas extended, precisely, which according to some specialists formed a single town with the puelches. To the south of the Chubut River were the Tehuelches and, in Tierra del Fuego, the Onas, very close to the Yaganes, in the area of the islands near the channels, such as the Beagle Channel. In what is now Mendoza, the Huarpe Indians lived. The fact that the Mapuche have made innumerable incursions towards this side of the mountain range, attacked and sometimes dominated other aboriginal populations, does not make them native peoples. In any case, they are as original as the Creoles who later fought against them and won. Spot. As Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, history cannot be turned back like a screw. Or does anyone imagine that a group perceives itself as Parthian and claims land from the Iranians; or that he considers himself a Sabine and disputes the hills with the Romans? That is why it makes no sense to speak of "pseudomapuches". False or true, they are not original; but, above all, it makes no sense in these lands, where the Spaniards mixed with the natives, thus forming a single nation. The condition of native cannot be invoked when generations of indissoluble and beneficial mixture have passed. But, above all, the Justice of a State whose sovereignty is unknown cannot be used, even if it is speculated on the betrayal of the magistrates. Either the authority of the Argentine State is recognized or it is challenged from the position of enemy.
It is clear that everywhere, but especially in Argentina, there is an indeclinable vocation to favor the enemy as long as he does not get into our particular affairs.. It is the main cause of our decline, it is the business of traitors to the nation, and it is the eschatological tendency to dirty the table where one eats, to express it in terms appropriate to these pages.
