Tehuelche

Tehuelches is a redirect to this article. The administrative unit Tehuelches in the Argentine province of Chubut can be found under Departamento Tehuelches .

Representation of the Tehuelche from 1832

The Tehuelche , Tewelche (foreign name of the Mapuche , in Mapudungun : "people in the south", "people of the south", sometimes also referred to as "defensive people") or depending on the dialect in your Tehuelche language as Aónikenk ("southern Tehuelche or people ") or Gennakenk known (" Northern Tehuelche or people "), the largest are the people of the indigenous Patagonian Argentina. The original name was Choanik or Chonqui ("man" or "people"). Their current number is given very differently: According to Ethnologue , it was 10,600 in 2004, and 27,800 according to the Argentine census in 2010. It can be assumed that these are almost exclusively mestizos today .

From north to south they are divided into different ethnic groups, but it is difficult to differentiate them and their names are very different. In the past they all spoke Tehuelche , which belongs to the family of the Chon (Tshon) languages and thus they were linguistically related to the Selk'nam (own name: Čonn) and Haush (own name: Manekénk). The language is as good as dead.

The ethnic groups

Map of the Indian tribes of Patagonia
Full area = Original territories Outlined in
white = today's settlement areas of the respective ethnic group
Dotted = today's settlement areas of the Mapuche u. Araucanized ethnic groups

The Tehuelche were not a unified people, but were made up of several ethnic groups that differed in culture and language, the region between the Río Senguer, Río Chubut and Río Chico formed the transition zone. They are subdivided from south to north as follows (the adjacent terms are synonyms for one and the same group):

• Southern Tehuelche or Aonikenk ("the southern people", "the southern people")
  • Teushen, Tehuesh, Téwsün, Téushenkenk, Téwesh, Chehuache-kénk or Mech'arn; also: "Northern (living) Southern Tehuelche" (lived between the Santa Cruz and Río Chubut )
  • Aónikenk, Aoniken, Günün A'yajic or Tshoneka; also: "Southern (living) Southern Tehuelche" (lived between the Santa Cruz River and the Strait of Magellan )
• Northern Tehuelche or Gennakenk , Günnuna Kenna ("the Northern people", "the Northern people")
  • Gennakenk, Gününa-Këna, Guénena-kéne, Gününa Iéjech, Chewelche or Chulilaiagich (lived between the Río Negro and Río Chubut)
  • Chüwach-a-Künna ("people / people on the edge of the mountains"); also: "Western Tehuelche" (lived along the foothills of the Andes in the Argentine provinces of Chubut and Rio Negro. They were usually at war with the Mapuche, who frequently invaded their area.)
  • Poya or Ténesch (lived in the Andes of the provinces of Llanquihue and Palena of the Región de los Lagos in Chile and on the south bank of Lake Nahuel Huapi on the border between the provinces of Neuquén and Río Negro in northern Patagonia in Argentina. Mapuche name: Furiloche / Vuriloche ("people behind the mountain" or "people from the other side of the mountain", hence Spanish " Bariloche ") or Poyuche .)

To the north of the Rio Negro lived the ethnic group called Puelche (Pwelche) ("People of the East"), who probably came from the culturally and linguistically dominant Northern Tehuelche (Gennakenk) and the Chechehet (along the mouths of the Río Colorado and Río Negro in the south ) through ethnogenesis the province of Buenos Aires ), the southern group of the Het (Pampas) , arose. This mixing and the cultural transfer of the dominant Tehuelche to the Pampas Indians in the northeast is also known as "Tehuelchization". Presumably other Chechehet joined the people known as Ranquel (Rankülche / Ranquelche) ("reed people"), who were often allied with the Tehuelche. On the eastern edge of the Andes, however, due to the advance of the mighty Mapuche, a new ethnic group emerged, the Pehuenche (Pewenche) ("people of the Chilean araucarias " or "fir people") from a combination of Mapuche (formerly also known as "Araucans") ) and Tehuelche by means of Araucanization (adoption of the culture and language of the Mapuche by the Patagonians and Pampa Indians, therefore these are mostly known today under their foreign names in Mapudungun : Tehuelche, Puelche, Pehuenche etc.).

Culture

Tehuelche campsite (1879)

Big dance festival for the birth of a child, at which the parents made big gifts to the cacique and the medicine man.

Kazike Casimiro Biguá, ca.1864

Originally the Tehuelche were hunters and gatherers . They hunted guanacos and rheas - both of which were found in very large populations - with bows and arrows , as well as Andean deer , pampas hares , birds, but also pumas . The gathering of mussels , bird eggs, edible wild plants and roots contributed to a lesser part of the diet. Excess meat was cut into thin strips, salted and dried. They used coats made of animal skins, which were decorated with geometric patterns in different colors, as clothing. They were carried with the fur inside and tied at the waist with a leather cord. The footwear of the Tehuelche consisted of puma skin or, later, horse skin, which was cut raw. They lived in large, relatively open tents (toldos), the framework of which was covered with greased and red-painted guanaco pelts. One slept on horse skins on the floor. When the camp moved, the toldos were dismantled and loaded onto the horses; The Tehuelche did not know stretchers like the North American Indians.

The Tehuelche were always organized in local groups which, under the leadership of a leader, comprised around 20 families with 50 to 60 members. Each association had an extensive area at their disposal over which they could exercise their hunting rights. In times of peace and before the change to equestrian culture, the power of the caciks was very limited; the community was largely acephalic ( without domination). In the event of war, prisoners were enslaved. They had to do low jobs, but were otherwise allowed to live like the rest of the tribe. The egalitarian social structure (equal rights for everyone) also changed with the takeover of the horse, which can be seen from the bride price for a girl: depending on rank, it was between seven and 100 mares.

The Mapuche had spread across the pampas since the beginning of the 17th century after they had familiarized themselves with horse breeding and had become a feared equestrian people. First they reached the northern Tehuelche (Gennakenk), which took over the equestrian culture. The southern Tehuelche followed between 1670 and 1800. Like them, they moved to the previously uninhabited steppe as a South American equestrian culture to hunt feral cattle and horses ( Cimarrón ) and to trade. For the hunt, the bola as well as lances and throwing slings were used. The local groups increased to 30 to 40 families with up to 500 people (according to another source up to over 1,000) under a Kazike ( chief ). In winter, large associations were stored together, which in spring split up into smaller groups.

The Tehuelche laid their dead on artificial mounds and covered the corpse with stones. The more significant the dead, the bigger the pile of stones. Passers-by had to add another stone to each cacique. In the case of men, their favorite horse was also slaughtered and stuffed so that it could be placed next to the death hill.

The Patagonians devoted their free time to various games of chance and competitive sports such as horse racing and a type of field hockey.

The northern Tehuelche often fought wars with the Mapuche against other ethnic groups, such as the Puelche. In addition to European weapons, single-ball bolas and lances were also used. However, part of the Tehuelche gradually mingled with them and the Mapuche.

Similar to the Tierra del Fuego , the nomadic way of life of the Tehuelche, who freely roamed the steppes of Patagonia, increasingly came into conflict with those interested in the land of English-born sheep farmers, who ruthlessly took action against the Tehuelche. Smallpox and other diseases, as well as alcohol, also led to severe population losses. In the 18th century there were still about 10,000 Tehuelche. The Tehuelche culture was practically extinct by 1965.

Today's Tehuelche mainly work as wage-dependent gauchos on estancias or on oil production facilities. They live scattered in Patagonian cities and in the two Indian reservations El Chalía and Loma Redonda in the province of Chubut .

religion

Ceremony of today's Tehuelche-Mapuche in Punta Cuevas (northeast coast of Chubut ) In the picture you can see the flag of this group.

The mythology of the Tehuelche was based on four ages: the first was the chaos of a deep sea or a thick, damp darkness. During the second age the “high god” ( Weq.on - “the honest one”, Kooch - “heaven” or “the old and everlasting”) ordered the world. In the third age, Elal - the young god - designed the earth and the hereafter and, as a cultural hero, brings technology, social, ritual and moral knowledge to people. With him the mythical age ended. Then came the fourth, present age. The world was seen as a system of four superimposed layers: the heavenly sky, the atmospheric sky, the earth and the underground area. These worlds were judged hierarchically in that order. The cardinal points were also rated from the good east via the ambiguous north and south to the bad west. The old god was not worshiped. The women had a repertoire of sacred songs, dedicated to Elal, the moon, the sun, and their daughter, which were passed down matrilineally. In addition to the gods, the Tehuelche adopted a large number of spirit beings . In order to appease the dead spirits and evil spirits (so-called Gualichus ), for example, horse sacrifices were offered or the men rode wildly gesticulating and screaming across the plain at sunrise to scare them away. The Gualichus allegedly caused disease by invading the body. In this case, the medicine man tried to drive them out by fixing the patient's head between his knees and shouting in his ear.

According to the ongoing surveys of the evangelical-fundamentalist conversion network Joshua Project , 90 percent of the Tehuelche are Catholics and 10 percent still profess the traditional religion , which, however, due to the almost complete assimilation into the Latin American culture, only consists of minor syncretistic residues in the Christian religion should.

history

The Tehuelche in northern Patagonia initially took over the language and culture of the Mapuche from the Andes in the course of the Araucanization in the 18th century . In the 19th century - after the end of the Mapuche state - they were forcibly subjugated in several campaigns by the new state of Argentina.

literature

• Christine Papp: The Tehuelche. An ethno-historical contribution to a centuries-long non-encounter (PDF file; 4.23 MB). Dissertation. University of Vienna, Vienna 2002.
• Alejandra Pero: The Tehuelche of Patagonia as chronicled by travelers and explorers in the nineteenth century. In: Archaeological and anthropological perspectives on the native peoples of Pampa, Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego to the nineteenth century. Edited by Claudia Briones and José Luis Lanata. Preface v. Laurie Weinstein. Bergin & Garvey, London 2002, ISBN 0-89789-584-3 , pp. 103-119.
• Anna Fernández Garay (Ed.): Textos tehuelches - homenaje a Jorge Suárez. Escom Europa, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89586-449-8 (Tehuelche language, oral narration, source).

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Waldemar Stöhr: Lexicon of peoples and cultures. Westermann, Braunschweig 1972, ISBN 3-499-16160-5 . Pp. 21-22.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ethnological information according to ISO language code 639-3: teh on ethnologue.com. SIL International , accessed January 9, 2016.
3. ↑ Censo Nacional de Población, Hogares y Viviendas 2010: Resultados definitivos: Series BN ^o 2: Tomo 1 ( Spanish ) INDEC. Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 5, 2015. 
4. ↑ Evaristo Aguirre: Los Querandíes: Nuestro pueblo originario . In: museolosdesmochados.com.ar (Museo Particular de Antropología e Historia Natural “Los Desmochados”), Casilda (Arg), accessed on January 18, 2016.
5. ↑ The seeds of the araucarias are called piñones ("pine nuts"), since the Pehuenche in particular survived the winter in the mountains by harvesting and storing these piñones as their practically sole food, they were called "fir people" by the neighboring Mapuche; when cooked, the piñones can be peeled off, similar to an almond; they taste like a mixture of potato, almond and peanut.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Göran Burenhult (ed.): Illustrated history of mankind. Volume: Primitive people today. Bechtermünz, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0745-8 (Original: Traditional Peoples Today , Harpercollins 1994). Pp. 196-197.
7. ^ Hugo Adolf Bernatzik: America. Volume 3 of The New Great Ethnology: Peoples and Cultures of the Earth in Word and Image, Herkul, 1954. P. 217, 292.
8. ^ Austin Whittall: Monsters of Patagonia. Cape. Southern South American Natives. Zagier & Urruty, Buenos Aires (Arg). 2014.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Wolfgang Lindig u. Mark Münzel (Ed.): The Indians. Volume 2: Mark Münzel: Central and South America , 3rd revised and expanded edition of the 1st edition from 1978, dtv, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-423-04435-7 . P. 371.
10. ↑ Willi Stegner (Ed.): Pocket Atlas Völker und Sprachen. 1st edition, Klett-Perthes, Gotha 2006, ISBN 978-3-12-828123-0 . P. 261.
11. ↑ Hartmut Motz: Languages ​​and Peoples of the Earth - Linguistic-Ethnographic Lexicon. 1st edition, Volume 1, Projekt-Verlag Cornelius, Halle 2007, ISBN 978-3-86634-368-9 . Pp. 213-214.
12. ↑ Rolf Seeler u. Juan Garff: DuMont Travel Guide Argentina Travel Guide. Edition, Mair Dumont, 2015. p. 211.
13. ↑ Alejandra Siffredi: Tehuelche Religion . In: encyclopedia.com, 2005, accessed January 13, 2016.
14. ↑ Åke Hultkrantz: American Religions, published in: Horst Balz et al. (Ed.): Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Volume 2: "Agende - Anselm von Canterbury". Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1978, ISBN 978-3-11-019098-4 . Pp. 407-408.
15. ↑ Joshua Project: Argentina ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Tehuelche, Aoniken), accessed January 13, 2016.