The Charruans of Uruguay Reclaim Their Ancestors
CUSCO, Peru – A Google search on the Charruans of Uruguay Hill reveals that they are either an “extinguished” Indian tribe or the name of Uruguay’s football team.
But for people like Enrique Auyanet and Maria Barbosa, the Charruan Nation is alive and well; and their ancestral values need to be integrated into the state of Uruguay, a tiny country on the tip of South America, which has officially prided itself on its “European” population and values.
Auyanet, president of the Association of Descendants of the Charruan Nation (ADENCH) and a delegate to the international Indigenous Fund, knows that he stands out at Latin/American Indian conferences because of his blue eyes and European features on a continent where most “mixed bloods” identify themselves as mestizo rather than “indigenous.” And he admits that nobody else in his family has reclaimed the Charruan identity held by his ancestors.
He and Barbosa, along with 250 Uruguayan families in ADENCH as well as six other organizations of Charruan descendants, have banded together to reconstitute and revalorize the Charruan Nation. Interviewed recently at a meeting of the Directors Council of the Indigenous Fund in Cusco, they spoke of the Charruan descendants’ fight to bring home the bones of their ancestors as well as reclaim ancestral traditions, which are fast disappearing.
There are no full-blooded Charruans left in Uruguay, Auyanet said. The last full-blooded Charruan men were killed in 1830 by the Uruguayan government in what has been described as ‘an efficient genocida.’ Uruguay, which once also had a sizeable percentage of African-descended inhabitants, had become by the 20th century a country of people who considered themselves “European in culture race and ancestro.”
He quotes a Uruguayan travel brochure: “One of the great advantages of Uruguay is that we have no Indians.”
Not true, insist Auyanet and Barbosa. The small group of full-blooded Charruan women who were left after their men were killed produced mixed-blood children, and these children produced the current descendants of the Charruan nation. Genetic studies have shown that 40 percent of Uruguayans have some percentage of Charruan blood, Auyanet said.
It was this blood that caused Auyanet to begin working more than 20 years ago on the Charruan cause.
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“The Charruans were the first disappeared,” he said, referring to the more than 30,000 Argentine and Uruguayan citizens who disappeared and were killed during the 1970s “dirty war” against political dissidents. “This was a double crime for the Charruans because we believe our dead need their family members to help them make the transition.”
The descendants of the Charruans have carried on that tradition for their ancestors by lobbying successfully in 2002 to bring back the bones of Charruan leader Vaimaca Piru’, which were put on display at the Museum of Man in Paris. They have also fought to correct the false textbook stereotypes of Charruans, who operated a federation of nations before the European conquests in what is now Uruguay and Argentina, and to integrate the Charruan cosmovision of respect for the word and the Earth into the Uruguayan educational system. They are creating a “memory bank” of the traditions and language of their elders. The language of the Charruans, Barbosa said, has all but disappeared, having dwindled to about 100 words.
Lack of financial resources and the patience needed to deal with aging elders, and the feeling that they are “running out of time,” has made the memory bank a challenging task. But Auyanet and Barbosa draw strength and inspiration from the indigenous movements that are changing the political landscape of Latin America.
“We had the opportunity to talk to Evo Morales in Bolivia,” said Auyanet. “Evo said, ‘For 200 years they’ve been talking about you like you’re dead.’ We told him we’re on our feet and we’re fighting for the same vindication you are.”
As for Uruguay using the name “Charruans” for its football team, Auyanet said he believes the use of this name honors “the bravery and the fighting spirit that our ancestors passed on to us, more than 300 years of struggle for their land, liberty and dignity.”
“We feel a very strong responsibility,” said Barbosa, “an obligation to our future generations and also to the ones of the past.”
“The Charruans defended their culture until the very end,” said Auyanet. “They wouldn’t submit to slavery or to religion. When the Catholics said, ‘If you don’t convert you’re going to hell,’ the chiefs said, ‘Well, at least it’ll be a little warmer in the middle of winter.’”
The priests promised them heaven and stars, and they said, ‘No, the kingdom of paradise is here on Earth.’”
