Tehuelche

The Tehuelches are Amerindian of Patagonie, alive between the river Río Negro and the Magellan Strait primarily in Argentinian territory and Chile in. They were famous to be of very big size and seem to have been at the base of the great myth of the giants patagons.

General information

The word " Tehuelche" is the name that the Mapuches gave to the whole of the people known as Pampas which lived since the river Río Chubut in Argentine, to the two coasts of the Magellan Strait and which were known by the colonizers Europeans like part of the ethnos group of the Patagons. Indeed this last name includes in more the Het S and the Gennakenk S, called together later on Puelche S by Mapuches. The term Tehuelche (resulting from the Mapudungun Chewelche " sauvages" people;) fact allusion to tough resistance that these tribes opposed to the expansion invaders mapuches in the Comahue and Patagonie). Another denomination with regard to them, also used by Mapuches is Auka , word probably of origin Quechua which is generally translated by: " sylvestre" , " indompté" , " rebelle".

The people tehuelche gave themselves to itself various names:

Gününa këna or Gennakenk or Gennaken (populations located at north, in the area of Tandil and of the Comahue, where them territory merged with that of the Chechehet S)
Aonnikén or Aonnikenk (those which lived in the south of the Río Chubut)
Shelk' nam or Selknam or Ona (those which lived in the north of the Ground of Fire)
Mánekenk or Haush (southernmost, strong mixed with the Yámanas or Yagans).

All these populations were accustomed to being recognized under the generic denomination of Tsonek , Tsonk or Chon , according to their dialect. The C-Ws communication of the names and the languages differ not only by the transcription from the Spaniards and Européens in the own language from the various authors, but also because the terms used in the speeches and dialects tehuelches presented a constant change, so much with the wire of time (diachronic change) that in space, according to the areas (synchronous change). One notices of this fact the many nomenclature met in the scientific literature.

Thus, the Gennakenk S are indistinctly called Pä' änkün' K , Payniken , Penkenke , Péeneken , gününa këna , guenaken , genaken , gennaken , tewesh , etc
while the Aonnikenk S receive the names of ao' nükün' K , inaken , aónikenk , aoniken , ahonikenk , aonnikenk , chonqui , haveniken , tsoneca , tä' nüs' kN , etc

Ethnology

The ethnos group tehuelche is divided basically into three groups corresponding to their geographical distribution, and the classification made by the ethnos group tehuelche itself as described above:

Tehuelches septentrional (or Gennakenk S), distributed since the north of the Río Chubut, until the Río Negro (or even more in north according to certain authors, occupying all the territory pampéen consequently).

Tehuelches Southerners (or Aonnikenk S), in the south of the Río Chubut, until the Magellan Strait.

has that are added Tehuelches of the Ground of Fire, i.e. the Selknam S and the Mánekenk S, or Mannekens or Haushs or Aushs .

Language

The language or rather the group of languages and dialects of Tehuelches called Tsonek or Chon one of the languages south-Amerindian is classified in the trunk of the languages Macro-pano, family Mosetén-Chon and groups Chon.

Until the end of the XIXe century, the following languages and dialects were recognized or known:

the Gennakenk S (in north) used the language called Chulilaiagich .
Tsoneks exchanges, i.e. those which were located in current the Argentinas provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro and the north of that of Chubut (between the Gennakenk S in north and the Aonnikenk S in the south, spoke the language known as the Pän-ki-kin or Penken .
In Patagonie power station existed also an old intermediate language enter the southernmost and septentrional communities tehuelches, called Tewsün or Teushen . This one also belonged to the family of the languages Chon and was gradually replaced by the terms aonnikenks. Most of the current toponimy of the central meseta patagonienne still preserves its tewsün roots, such as for example the word " Chupat" from which the word " comes; Chubut".
Enfin the Aonnikenk S spoke the Tsonk or tsonek or chon, which currently constitutes the dialect more studied.

Social organization

Although nomads, their displacements were usually circuits, with periodic stops, generally of west in is and vice versa. For each stage they had sites where they installed their camping, called aik or $aiken by them-even and tolderías by the Spaniards and the Argentinian Creoles.

Their groups were usually made of 50 to 100 members. Each group were made up of the same individuals relationship and had a specific territory of hunting and gathering. The limits were specified by it of long time (by ancestral way) by topographic accidents often very little obvious: a hillock, a feeding trough, a ravine, an important tree. If a grouping could not provide for its needs on its own territory, it was to ask for the close groups the permission of use theirs. Any transgression with this rule brought usually a war.

They were strongly exogames. The boys were obliged to seek a partner in other groups and were accustomed to exchanging the women. And that reinforced the bonds between groups as well as the ethnic unit. Sometimes instead of barter, they practiced the abduction of the women. But this violent control implied intraethnic wars quasi automatically.

History

Before the discovery of America

9.000 years ago emerged a primitive industry producing of the triangular points of projectiles to two faces, as well as side and final scrapers, knives double-side and of the instruments in bone. Later, it there 7.000 to 4.000 years, appears the industry known as of Casapiedra , characterized by a greater quantity of instruments lithic undoubtedly intended for hunting for the Guanaco, animal essence throughout posterior cultural developments of patagons.

As of this time and until the arrival of the Spaniards at the beginning of the XVIe century) let us patagons them or Tehuelches had a lifestyle of hunters-gatherers where they used the seasonal nomadism, moving according to the herds of guanacos. During the winter one found them in the low zones, fertile valleys, coasts, edge of the lakes, and in summer they went up on mesetas or central plates of Patagonie or in the Andes cordillera, where they in addition had their sites crowned like the cerro Chaltén (called Fitz Roy today).

Arrival of the Spaniards

The arrival of the Spaniards brought great changes in the culture and the life of the Amerindian people and Tehuelches were not exempted by it. It occurred among them lethal epidemics (variola, measles, influenza) which decimated them, particularly Tehuelches septentrional or Gennakenk S.

It was a demographic catastrophe which especially occurred with the XVIIe and XVIIIe centuries and which facilitated the invasion of their territory by part of the Mapuches. So there remained only two options for the Gennakenk S: either to be integrated into the invaders as with the survivors of the Het S (which had undergone the same plagues), and to thus give rise to the ethnos group Puelche, or to turn over towards the south to amalgamate with their brothers Aonnikenk S and to fight the Mapuches together. What made a part of them. In 1865, they delivered the bloody ones and keen combat against the latter on banks of the Río Senguerr so known like Río Gengel . Today the mapuches still remember the terrible battle of Languiñeo (toponym mapuche meaning Là many dead ).

The constitution of the ethnos group Puelche thanks to chalk-linings in particular tehuelches explains, partly, the attitude of certain puelches chiefs like Catriel, Chucul, Foyel or Sayhueque, which made a pact with the white or creole and was regarded as traitors: Catriel, out of origin Gennakenk, was killed savagely, as a allied combatant with the white , by other Puelches related to the ethnos group mapuche, that in 1879.

In second half of the XIXe century, the Welsh immigrants started to colonize the current province of Chubut and wove extremely remarkable social links with Tehuelches: in general the relations between them were harmonious and thus currently one frequently observes in this province of the people to the russet-red hair and the attached eyes.

Patagon and Pathoagón

The first name that the Spaniards gave to Tehuelches was that of Patagons, already in 1520 during the forwarding ordered by Fernand of Magellan. Indeed, before to have met them personally, these explorers were extremely anxious by the size of the prints of their feet. Strongly amplified by the skins of animal which were used to them as shoes, their feet appeared immense especially that at that time Europeans had a smaller intermediate size in general, which is relative because there were also individuals of good size. As for the Patagons men they had an intermediate size of more than 1m80 for the men. Spanish thus regarded them as patones , word Castilian for lumps , and compared them to the giant Pathoagón character of tale of chivalry. Of cranial structure Dolichocéphale like the other Indians Pampas they became famous in the European literature of the XVIe to the XIXe century because of their large stature and their physical force.

It is important to have with the spirit which enters the XVIe and XVIIIe centuries the name of Patagonie was given to the whole of the grounds located at the south of the estuary of the Río of Plata. That reinforces the assumption of certain antropologists, like R. Casamiquela, according to which the Het S were also of Patagons.

A culture of the Horse

One knows few things of the culture tehuelche former to the horse, although them social organization and economic was similar to that of the Selknams or Onas of the Ground of Fire (which, let us recall it, set up in fact a group of Tehuelches). The introduction of the horse dates from the beginning of the XVIIIe century, and transformed their social organization. It was formed among them an equestrian complex . Just as the Indians of the large meadows of North America, Tehuelches exploited the large steppes of bushes of Patagonie, alive above all the Guanaco and the meat of rhea (Nandou or choic ), but also the meat of huemul, of stag, will mara and even of Puma and Jaguar. They learned though tardily to cultivate the ground, concentrating on certain plants. As for fish and the other products of the sea, there existed certain taboos on their premises: thus certain groups prohibited consumption of fish. Following the adoption of the horse, mobility that they had acquired deteriorated the ancestral territorialities and modified the diagram of displacements mainly. Thus, before XVIIe century East-West transhumances prevailed, with the continuation of the guanacos. But as soon as they controlled the equestrian complex, North-South longitudinal displacements carried it gradually. It is established wide commercial circuits of exchange thus: as of the medium of the XIXe century the Aonnikenk S exchanged their skins and molluscs against cholilas (strawberry S, Mûre S, calafate S, pine cones of the pehuén, Llao llao, growths and buds of Coligüe, etc) and apples with the Gennakenk S of the Neuquén, the High valley of Río Negro and of Country of the Strawberries or Chulilaw (beautiful area delimited more or less in north by the Lake Nahuel Huapi, in the east by the called low and morainic cordilleras Patagonides, in the west by the high summits of the Andes and in the south by the lake Buenos Aires or General Will square).

The horse and more precisely the mare, arrived at becoming the principal dish of their mode and left the guanaco in second place. The Selknam S of Ground of Fire on the other hand did not develop a culture of the comparable horse.

Their clothing consisted of long made capes of skins of animal, out of loincloths around their body as in shoes which recovered all the foot. Their habitat also consisted of kinds of round tents manufactured of skin.

See too

Patagons
Mapuches
Patagonie Argentina

External bonds

the People Tehuelche
Territory Aonnikenk
http://www.aonikenk.cl
Pierre crowned of the Indians tehuelches

Random links: