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Aboriginals
The
last native people to inhabit the Monte León area
were the Chonkeh, also called Tehuelche or Patagones.
They
were hunter-gatherers who had developed simple and effective
techniques for surviving in a harsh environment which was nevertheless
rich in game, water, firewood and shelter. Sheep farming in
the late nineteenth century gave the final blow to their traditional
way of life, which had already been deeply modified through
contact with both the Araucanos of Pacific Patagonia and the
white man.
Southern
Patagonia, despite its unforgiving winters, is a place
eminently suited for human habitation: water, game, shelter
and firewood abound. Records of human presence in the
area date back to neolithic times. These early inhabitants
may have hunted the pleistocenic fauna, which included
giant armadillos and sloth as well as the famous "sabre-toothed
tiger".
Fossile
remains of giant mammals are found at Monte León's
coastal area, where examples of ancient lithic implements
of several periods are also usual. Constant eolic erosion
of Patagonia’s surface makes it hard to precisely
date these tools, but researchers believe them to be at
least 7,000 to 8,000 years old.
A
legend of the Gennaken or Northern Chonkeh, a Patagonian
Native people, recorded by Francisco Moreno in the late
nineteenth century, tells of the "Engassen, a big, strange
animal covered by thick plates like those of an armadillo".
The story suggests an early coexistence of man and glyptodont
(a prehistoric giant armadillo), or it may have been suggested
to the Gennaken by fossile remains.
The
surviving pleistocenic giant mammals were scaled down
by evolution and climatological change: glyptodonts thrive
today under the guise of armadillo, smilodons -sabre-toothed
tigers- were replaced by puma, megatheria disappeared
from Patagonia, and survived as ant-eaters and sloths
in warmer regions of South America. Only man, the adaptable
animal par excellence, survived in his original form.
All
travelers who knew the Patagones, original lords of the land,
were impressed by their height and strength. Patagonia's demanding
environment seems to contribute to the production of exceptionally
well developed individuals in many warm-blooded species. Birds
like the tero-tero (plover) or carancho (cara cara), usual throughout
Argentina, are uniquely stout and well developed in Patagonia.
The same thing occured with the exotic, and enormously successful, European hare.
From
prehistoric times, human groups of different stock occupied
the area, sometimes simultaneously. The unyielding environment
-which has remained esentially changeless for at least
11,000 years- must have imposed a similar way of life
to them all.
From
the days of the first, nameless, hunter-gatherers, to
the last aboriginals -the Chonkeh- countless generations
trod well defined circuits ranging over thousands of square
miles. There, they settled for short periods where game
was plentiful, living in solid portable homes made with
poles (brought all the way from the woods in the Andes)
and guanaco skin. It is at these spots that arrow heads,
flint knives, scrapers, and stone balls from the "boleadoras"
(a throwing weapon later adopted by the Gaucho), bearing
the imprint of different "styles" or phases, bear witness
to the presence of the aboriginals.
In
1520, the sailing fleet of Magellan stopped at what is
now known as Puerto San Julián, a winter hunting
ground some eighty miles North of Monte León.
Pigafetta, one of the crew who kept a detailed record
of the journey, writes of how, after a two month stay
there, the Europeans first made contact with the Patagonian
natives. They were visited by "a man of gigantic height
(...) his robe was made of very well sewn skins from an
animal that is plentiful here (...) He also wore shoes
of a sort, made out of this skin. He carried a short,
stout bow, which string, somewhat thicker than that of
a lute, was made out of the guts of the same animal. He
had several small arrows in his other hand, and their
heads, instead of being, like ours, made of iron, were
fashioned out of black and white flint".
This
description suits the native peoples -indistinctly known
as "Patagones" or "Tehuelches"- before their ways were
transformed by contact both with the white man and the
aboriginals from Pacific Patagonia. They called themselves
"Chonkeh", which simply means "people" or "human being".
Pigafetta
writes "our captain wanted to get hold of two of the youngest
and stoutest of them, so as to keep them with us and take
them later to Spain". He goes on to tell how they were
put in irons, under the pretence that the shackles were
bracelets, and forcibly taken on board.
In
the nearly four hundred years that mediated between Magellan’s
arrival and the final extinction of their traditional
way of life, the Chonkeh and their ways were described
by many Western travelers, with whom the Native Patagonians
kept frequent contact. Malaspina’s expedition stopped
by in late eighteenth century, and, after meeting the
Chonkeh, the scientist wrote in his dairy that: "doubtless,
the perusal of spirits was neither unknown nor disagreeable
to them". Alcohol was the chief goods in trade the
Patagonians received in return for ostrich (rhea darwinii)
feathers, guanaco-skin robes and furs.
Drink
and the new diseases brought by the white man were the
chief agents in the decline and eventual disappearance
of the traditional Chonkeh. Even so, it is worth noting
the Indians found spiritual meaning in alcoholic intoxication,
incorporating ritual libations to their sacred ceremonies,
and never forgetting appropriate invocations even before
the rather prosaic communal drinking bouts which followed
a business transaction, in which they invariablywere
taken advantage of.
The
language of the Chonkeh seems to have survived since times
immemorial. The few words recorded by Pigafetta in the
early XVIth century, a vocabulary compiled two centuries
after that by the Spanish viceroy Viedma, and one put
together by the Anglican missionary Teófilo Schmit
in 1862, among others, show a basic identity despite usually
garbled transcriptions. The language spoken by the Haush
or Northern Ona of Tierra del Fuego has striking similarities
with that of the Chonkeh. Some researchers believe these
peoples were part of a common race which was split when
the Fuegian island separated from the Patagonian mainland
in prehistoric times.
Estimating
the precise number of the Chonkeh population at a given
time is difficult. In 1863,Teófilo Schmit’s
rough estimate is of about 1,000 individuals in the territories
south of the Río Santa Cruz. Ten years later, an
Englishman, G.C. Musters, who traveled for one year with
the Chonkeh of chief Orkeke, and wrote down his experiences
in the classic "At Home with the Patagonians", estimated them at 1.500, rapidly diminishing through drink
and smallpox.
European
influence on the Patagonians also made itself felt indirectly.
The Araucano, Indians from the coastal woods of Pacific
Patagonia, had intense contact with the Spanish conquistadores
who arrived in Chile in the early sixteenth century. In
the cruel war that lasted well into the nineteenth century,
the Araucano, or more correctly "Mapuche",
a word meaning "people of the land", quickly
adopted the invader’s horses.
On
the Atlantic side of the Andes, the first Spanish attempt
of settling what today is Buenos Aires (1536) ended in
disaster. Hounded by hostile natives and hunger, the Spaniards,
led by Pedro de Mendoza, left for the next fifty years,
leaving behind them a handful of cattle and horses. These
ran wild in the infinite grasslands, and were soon increased
to countless heads which roamed the Pampas. The Araucano,
now skilled riders and thus capable of practically boundless
journeys, were attracted by this wealth, and they began
their raids across the Andes into what later became the
Argentine, where a considerable number of them came to
live permanently, from Patagonia to the Pampas.
Interaction
between the Araucano and the Chonkeh, under the guise
of war, trade and intertribal marriage, three intimately
related activities, was increased. As early as 1580, Spanish
explorer Sarmiento de Gamboa recorded that the Chonkeh
had "a few horses". Horses are conspicuously
absent from accounts of the Chonkeh until that date. After
the second half of the XVIIIth century, the Chonkeh are
invariably reported as being a people of horsemen, usually
wearing woven woolen garments as well as their traditional
skin robes: both innovations are Araucanian.
The
last Tehuelche to be photographed in traditional garb, mid twentieth century, wear Araucano-like woven
ponchos, heavy silver riding gear and "bota de potro",
a boot made with the skin of a colt’s leg. Among
present day Patagonians of native stock, the usual surnames
are clearly Araucano. Hundreds of native cowboys who worked
in Estancia Monte León since it began it’s
activities more than one hundred years ago had Araucano
surnames like Caucamán-Milapichún, Chipailaf
or Millapán.
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In
1874, the Argentine general Julio Roca launched what was
known as "La Campaña del Desierto", pushing
the frontiers of civilization as far as the Río
Negro in Northern Patagonia, in a war waged against the
aboriginals of Chilean stock whom for centuries had kept
Argentine burgeoning livestock industry in check. Roca’s
drastic attack, heavily based on the new six-shot Remington
repeating rifle, put an end to the uneasy, blood-stained
co-existence of conquerors and conquered which spanned
four centuries of ceaseless war and negotiations.
Even
though warfare in northern Patagonia was a cruel, extermination-oriented
business, Southern Patagonia Indians were pretty much
left to themselves, as the lands they occupied were unanimously
considered by Europeans to be essentially unfit for human
habitation. Charles Darwin’s oft quoted remark about
"the curse of sterility lying on the land",
interestingly written while attempting to reach the sources
of Río Santa Cruz across what later became part
of Estancia Monte León, was certainly
influential
in this respect. But with the march of progress, more
practical considerations began to weigh more than the
great scientist’s somewhat shallow impressions of
Patagonia.
From
the early sixteenth century onwards, English, Dutch and
later North American ships had been hunting penguin, sea
lion, and whale commercially on the Patagonian shores.
Since the 1860s Isla Pavón, at the mouth of Río
Santa Cruz, about 20 miles from Monte León,
was settled by Argentine seaman Luis Piedrabuena. Piedrabuena not only conducted a brisk trade with the Indians
—basically providing them with liquor in exchange
for furs- but also upheld "de facto" Argentine
territorial rights in the lands South of the Santa Cruz,
also claimed by Chile.
Both
Chile and Argentina successively installed representatives
at Puerto Santa Cruz and were often on the brink of open
war. Anglican missionaries, already established at the
Falklands and Tierra del Fuego, attempted settling near
Puerto Santa Cruz in the 1860’s, but their attempts
proved unsuccessful. These various attempts to settle
the area were all limited in scope and certainly did not
contemplate encroaching on the ancestral lands of the
Chonkeh.
This
state of affairs changed by the 1880s. Starting at the
previous decade, agricultural production in Great Britain
was largely substituted by industry. The British Empire,
then at the height of its influence, delegated food production
—mainly frozen ovine meat- to the Commonwealth —Australia,
Canada, New Zealand- and areas of influence: Uruguay and
Argentina.
Sheep
farming had been successfully attempted by the British
at the Falkland Islands. In the 1860s, the pioneer entrepreneurs
of the Chilean South based at Punta Arenas had brought
over sheep from the Falklands to the Magellanic region
with spectacular success. Thus, the solving of old border
quarrels between Chile and Argentina became mandatory
for further sheep farming in the area.
In
1881, an agreement -in which the British Crown acted
as mediator- was finally reached between Chile and Argentina
concerning the territories South of Río Santa Cruz,
which were handed over to Argentina. With the area’s
legal and political status thus settled, sheep farms -often
under English and Scot management and owned by London-based
public companies- were formed in what were until then
the hunting grounds of the Chonkeh. The head-on encounter
between a Prehistoric culture and the West at the peak
of its expansion was, by necessity, fatal to the original
lords of the land.
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The
sale of public land in Santa Cruz was soon under way.
Naturally, the most sought after areas for sheep farming
were those abounding in grass, water and shelter, which
had been the Chonkeh traditional camping grounds for countless
generations. These stop-overs were called Aike in the
native language, and a quick glance at the map of present-day
Santa Cruz reveals how many of them dotted the otherwise
stark steppe. The Chonkeh were confined to reservations,
where their speedy march to extinction was further accelerated.
Drink,
disease and confinement of a people who had previously
been on the march almost constantly were not the only
agents of the extinction of the Chonkeh. A.F. Tschiffely,
the Swiss traveler who rode from the Pampas to Washington
in the 1920s, and traveled extensively in Patagonia in
the 1930s writes in his wonderful "This Way Southward"
of being shown a complete riding harness fashioned from
the skin of an Indian. He also tells of shooting parties
against defenseless Indians conducted by British sheep
farmers from a small river steamer.
Francisco
Moreno, the Argentine explorer has left a revealing testimony
of the "scientific" approach to race which was
prevalent in the West by the late nineteenth century -and,
one might add, well into the twentieth. In his "Viaje
a la Patagonia Austral" he writes about the Tehuelche
(another name from the Chonkeh) Sam Slick, son of Casimiro,
who, like his father, was a rather corrupt go-between
between the white man and his people. "He allowed
me to take his picture, but on no account would he accept
his body, and specially his head to be measured. I do
not know what strange preoccupation made him act thus.
When I met him some time later (...) I proposed he come
with me (on an expedition) and he refused, saying I wanted
his head. Such was his destiny. Some days after I left,
he was dastardly murdered by two other Indians during
a drinking bout. As soon as I arrived back, I heard of
his misfortune, found out where he had been buried, and
exhumed his body -which skeleton I handed over to
the Anthropological Museum in Buenos Aires- one moonlit
night. This sacrilege was committed for the sake of osteological
study of the Tehuelche".
The
Argentine authorities’ scientific zeal was also patent
in their final dealings with Orkeke, last of the Chonkeh
chiefs, the grandson of a like-named chief whose presence
in the area has been recorded by Viedma’s eigteenth
century expedition. Orkeke and his dwindling tribe ranged
over a vast hunting ground which included what would become
Estancia Monte León. It was with them George
Ch. Musters made his celebrated trip -of which he
wrote in the classic "At Home With the Patagonians"-from
Isla Pavón to Andean Chubut in the 1870s. Orkeke
was also payed by the Argentine government to keep this
country’s flag flying in the Santa Cruz territory,
also claimed by Chile.
In
the winter of 1883, less than two years after the agreement
which made over to Argentina the territories South of
the Santa Cruz, Orkeke and what remained of his people
(fifteen men, thirty seven women and children) were taken
into custody by colonel Vintter and taken to Buenos Aires
in the Villarino, a small steamer. Orkeke’s imprisonment
was officially an act of retaliation for a clash between
government troops and a combined force of Araucano and
Chonkeh in the plain of Apeleg, in Andean Chubut. The
Apeleg incident -in which Orkeke and his people did
not have the least participation- left a toll of one dead
sergeant, one dead officer and eleven wounded soldiers
on the Army’s side. Indian casualties rose to eighty.
Once
in Buenos Aires, Orkeke´s tribe was emprisoned at
the 1st Artillery Regiment, the Indian women in much demand
as servants by people holding recommendations to that
effect from various officials. "La Nación"
daily newspaper reports of the Indians’ arrival and
tells of "Notini, an elderly squaw who was such a
patriot that she possessed two Argentine flags that were
hoisted in her wigwam on festive occasions. Today, she
mourns the loss not just of her flags, but also of 40
horses, 4 cows, 5 calves, a little money and several pounds
of ostrich feathers, all of which was plundered by the
invading soldiers who assaulted their encampment at dawn".
Orkeke
and his people were allowed limited freedom, and treated
to the sights and a non-stop series of social events.
After their arrival in Buenos Aires on August 1, the dailies
took to reporting their movements. Shortly after arriving,
Orkeke had an audience with general Roca, the strategist
responsible for the "Campaña del Desierto"
who had by now been elected President of the Argentine
Republic. A special performance of "Mefistófeles"
was staged at the Teatro de la Alegría for the
benefit of the Chonkeh on the 8th, on which occasion Mrs.
Larsen and Lista enlightened the audience with a conference
on the "Tehuelches" during the interval. Lista
was the first governor of the new territory of Santa Cruz,
and the author of an intelligent and heartfelt plea on
the extinction of the Tehuelche.
On
the 11th, the Chonkeh were treated to dinner at the Café
de Paris. This time, the guests not only numbered Larsen
and Lista, but the Spanish Plenipotentiary Ambassador,
Mr. Durán y Cuerbo. One Mr. Comminges read a lengthy
poem of his own penning about the Chonkeh. Next week,
they were taken to the Skating Rink.
On
September 6, "La Nación" reports Orkeke’s
being at the Military Hospital, down with pneumonia. The
same article tells of "Valeska, the tribe’s
sorceress, who delivered her soul unto her Maker a few
days ago, a victim to nostalgia. She could not forget
her cold Patagonian hearth". On the 14th, "La
Nación" reports Orkeke´s death, also
stating the corpse was dissected by the Hospital’s
practitioners.
The
sequence ends on September 20th, when "La Nación",
under the heading "Orkeke’s remains" reports
as follows:
"By
the end of this month, Orkeke’s skeleton, conveniently
prepared, will be exhibited at the Military Hospital.
"After
the flesh was taken apart form the bones, the body was
submerged in lye so as to get rid of any minute fragments
of flesh still clinging to it.
"Once
this procedure is finished, the chief’s skeleton
well be put back together. Those in charge of the dissection
were stricken by the skull’s enormity and the thickness
of the frontal bone. Shins and arms are of unusual dimension
too.
"Orkeke´s
skeleton will be kept at the Military Hospital".
When
being shipped shortly after to the newly founded Museum
of La Plata, Orkeke’s bones were mislaid and have
never turned up since.
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