University of Warwick Institutional Repository: a Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Phd at The
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University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/1210 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. I 2ý THE CHILEAN NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF CHILE Maria Elena Donoso Thesis submitted for the qualification of Ph. A Research Thesis UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK June 2004 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE 2 ABSTRACT 3 INTRODUCTION 5 1. GENERAL BACKGROUND 9 1.1. NATI ONS AND IDENTITY 9 1.2. PERCEPTIONS OF LATIN AMERICA AND ITS IDENTITY 27 1.2.1. THE LATIN AMERICAN WORLD 27 1.2.2. THE SPANISH PRESENCE IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN'NEW WORLD' 38 11. PERCEPTIONS OF C HILEAN IDENTITY 49 11.1. GEOGRAPHY AND M LEAN IDENTITY 51 11.2 HISTORY AND CHILEAN IDENTITY 67 111. VERSIONS OF CHILEAN IDENTITY 75 111.1. A HISPANICIST-CATHOLIC VERSION OF CHILEAN IDENTITY 75 111.2. A POPULAR VERSION OF CHILEAN IDENTITY 98 111.2.1. WOMEN AND MESTIZAJE 110 IV. THE PRE-COLOMBIAN PEOPLES OF CHILE 117 IV. 1. MAPUCHE, A 'PEOPLE OF THE LAND' 126 IV. 2. THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS 138 IV. 2.1. THE BRITISH IN THE NORTHERN DESERTS 145 IV. 3. THE PEOPLES OF THE SOUTHERN END 148 IVA. RAPA NUI, A PEOPLE OVERSEAS 152 IV. 5. PEOPLES THAT NO LONGER EXIST 155 IV. 5.1. PEOPLES OF CENTRAL CHILE 155 IV. 5.2 PEOPLES OF PATAGONIA 158 CONCLUSIONS 163 APPENDIX 171 BIBLIOGRAPHY 182 2 PREFACE This research which started as an exploration into the complex terrain of the Chilean identity finally turned into a painful soul-searching process, because having been born in the country it proved impossible to distance myself and become a kind of outside witness. On the contrary, I developed an awareness of the dark corners of the Chilean identity, and realised that as a Chilean I have a blame to bear for the invisibility into which the 'pueblos originarios' have been relegated, and also a task ahead, of which this thesis is a step. I am very grateful for the assistance received, in Britain from my supervisors, Dr. J. Collie and Professor S. Bassnett, and in Chile from my dear friends B. Kase from the Catholic University and R. Yaflez, from Universidad Andrds Bello, whose support all through the process proved to be invaluable. This thesis is therefore, to them. 3 ABSTRACT This research was prompted by the questions 'What is being Chilean?, Who are tile Chileans? Do all those born in the country feel the same about their nationality and about their fellow nationals? A large number of Chileans will describe their country as culturally and ethnically homogenous, probably because they do not include the native peoples in their description; least of all would they acknowledge that mestizo blood runs in their veins. Therefore, my objective has been to deconstruct the myth homogeneity in the Chilean identity. Moreover, this research, which started as an exploration into tile complex terrain of tile Chilean identity, finally turned into a rather painful soul-searching process. It is obvious that having been born in Chile, it was impossible for me not to become involved, not to feel touched more than once, not to feel guilty more than once. The identities of the indigenous peoples and the descendants of Spanish colonisers have been profoundly transformed during 500 years of social, cultural and political change. Tile rise of the nations states and tile construction of national identities after the wars of Independence were key moments for Latin America, but although no longer tinder colonial rule, the social and cultural differences between 'Indians' and Spaniards continued into the republic, based on the imagined superiority of the Spanish culture, language and religion. Currently Chile, where in recent times - and in the past as well - the military played a crucial role, is in a process of globalisation and reconstruction of the national identity. The research was framed by the understanding that the imagined community of the nation is formed by 'us' and 'them', and a distinction which does not indicate a binary opposition but a complex articulation which both supports and fractures tile nation. In the imagined community of tile Chilean nation identities are multiple and cultures are multiple too. They are constituted in relation to dimensions such as history, place and culture. Geography, in Chile, is also a defining marker of national identity that does not imply inert geography, but an essential dimension in the cultural and social dynamics of tile nation. 4 I challenge the view, long sustained by many Chileans that their country is culturally and ethnically homogeneous. In order to achieve this end I explore the 'skeleton in the cupboard' of the Chilean identity, that is to say, their mestizo origin. With that objective in mind, this research was conceived as a contribution to make Chileans come to terms with the fact that they have some amount of 'Indian' blood in their veins. Only when they are able to take that step, will they be able to appreciate and take pride in the ancient cultures they descend from because in that way they will shed light into that dark comer of their identity. National communities are not only in people's heads or in the imagination of a nation of citizens, but are projected and articulated through channels like the media and educational practice; they are also embodied and practised. From the moment that identity is conceived, not as a fixed ethos formed in a remote past, but as a future project, Chileans great challenge now is to define what they want to be. There may be different projects, alternative proposals and different versions of national identity that will lead on to different roads, but they must include a notion of collective identity that is open to alterity, invention and transgression and also a diversity that Chileans have so far refused to accept. 5 INTRODUCTION The thesis seeks to illuminate some aspects of identity building in Chile and in order to do that it proposes to explore layers of complexity embedded in this process. This work deals with present day Chilean national identity in the larger context of Latin American identities and other post colonial situations, as well as in the light of the culture, history and geography of the country. It is an exploration into the complex terrain of perceptions as it seeks to show aspects of Chilean identity perceived in the light of the Chileans' own representations as well as through outsiders' eyes and its main objective is to deconstruct the myth of homegeniety in the Chilean identity. Identity is a topic of our times, one that is currently being discussed. Belonging seems to be a more powerful and lasting force. This millenary force whose vitality is an enigmatic issue, is difficult to explain, except perhaps that it is the community's space what gives sense to life. In times of crisis, questions about identity are asked more often and louder. My country seems to have lived through a continuous state of crisis or a succession of crises in the last decades of the last century, to which the new millennium has not brought clear answers. 'The question of cultural identity does not usually arise in situations of relative isolation, prosperity and stability. For identity to become an issue, a period of instability and crises, a threat to the old-established ways, seems to be required, especially of this happens in the presence of, or in relation to, other cultural formations. " 19 the determination of identities, there is a kind of magic that links identity to origin. The secret of this magic is that identity is what "gives sense to temporality". It is necessarythen a referent located, in a way, outside time, in a moment when it is free from instability and the fugacity of events. One possibility is to try to find meaning in the moment of death becausethe end gives a sense of totality to existence. But this is not a good option when we deal with the collective memory that can only re-signify through the only other moment 6 that it is immovable and gives us a safe referent, the moment of the origin. Its ftinction is to So, look back in re-signify, to re-order the past. to at the origins - and at the remote past, this case, at the Hispanic and the Pre-Colombian pasts - is in this case, a strategy that could prove useful and illuminating to deal with identity and difference. Roberto FernAndez Retamar, writing about Latin America, mentions what he calls 'our 2 Gabriela Mistral Chilean irremediable colonial condition'. - Nobel Prize for Literature - him that for her 'the Colonial had finished' I agreed with when she said period not .3 think she was right because her native country had not been born a republic, as some seem to want to believe. Neither did the republic obliterate a colonial past it wanted to forget. This lack of integration with the past, this loss of the long-term collective memory may be a strategy to forget that it is there where the real roots of the country's identity are. On the other hand, the survival of the colonial period, warned Gabriela Mistral, is above all an expression of the wish that the past finally becomes past.