Donald D. Brand

The Peoples and Languages of Chile

This article initiates a series in which the writer will attempt to summarize the scattered and commonly contradictory material on the present ethnic and linguistic constituency of a number of Latin American countries. It represents some personal investigations in the field and an examination of much of the pertinent literature. Chile has been a sovereign state since the War of Independence 1810-26. This state was founded upon a nuclear area west of the Andean crest and essentially between 240 and 460 South Latitude. Through the War of the Pacific with Bolivia and Perui in 1879-1883 and peaceful agreements with Argentina, Chile acquired her present extention from Arica to Tierra del Fuego. These northern and southern acquisitions added little to her population but introduced numerous small ethnic and linguistic groups. Chile has taken national censuses in 1835, 1843, 1854, 1865, 1875, 1885, 1895, 1907, 1920, 1930, and the most recent one in November of 1940. None of these censuses has been satisfactory in terms of an analysis of the population by race and language (the analyses of the 1940 census are not yet available). This is not surprising since exact race is exceedingly difficult to determine, and the indigenous and nonSpanish tongues are not important in the national life. Consequently, most of what has been written on race and language in Chile has been based on the guesses of a few individuals--many of whom were not qualified to give an opinion. The writer makes no claim to omniscience, but he has observed the people at scattered points from Arica to Angol, and he has examined the literature from the days of the conquest to the present.

A Brief History of Araucanian Studies

The term Araucanian most properly refers to the language once spoken by the many Indian groups between the Rio Choapa (Coquimbo Province) and the Gulf of Corcovado (Chiloe Province). However, growing usage-both vulgar and scientific-makes advisable the use of this name for the Indians themselves, although they were never a political, physical, or cultural unit. Probably the first European contact with the Araucanians was in 1536, when some of Diego de Almagros scouts advanced into central Chile. However, it remained for Pedro de Valdivia, in 1541, to conquer all of Araucanian Chile earlier held by the Incas (to the Rio Maule), and to push southward across the Rio Bio-Bio into the forest home of the unconquered Araucanians. Here, in 1553, Valdivia lost his life to these Indians-led by Lautaro and Caupolicdn. The conquest was continued by Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, in whose small army was Alonso de Ercilla y Zdfiiga (Madrid 1533-1594 Madrid). Although Ercilla spent only seventeen months in Chile (1557-59) his La Araucana has been considered the greatest epic poem in the Spaniish language. This work was commenced in Chile, concluded in Spain, and was published in Madrid in three parts which appeared in 1569, 1578, and 1589. Although good poetry and fairly good history, La Araucana ennobled the Indians exceedingly and cannot be relied upon ethnographically. Similar in vein were El Arauco Dovmado (Lima, 1596), by a Chilean creole Pedro de Ofia (Angol 1570-1643 Peru), which was good poetry but which made the Indian a highly romantic figure, and Puren Ind6mito (finished in 1599), by Fernando Alvarez de Toledo (born about middle of XVI century). The century 1541-1641 saw a temporary conquest and settlement of most of the Araucanian country to Chiloe Island, followed by triumphant insurgence of the Indians which left only a few isolated settlements and missions south of the Bio-Bio-such as Arauco, Valdivia, and Castro-in the hands of the Spaniards. A treaty of 1641, confirmed in 1655, saw Spain recognize the independence of the Indians south of the Bio-Bio. During the next one hundred and twenty years (until the peace of 1773, not really effective until 1792) SpanishAraucanian relationships consisted mainly of many guerrilla raids (for slaves, revenge, booty, and punitive) and numerous peace agreements. Only the uprisings of 1723 and 1766 were general. The period 1773-1859 was one almost of peace, excepting for the participation of many Araucanians on the side of the royalist Spaniards against the republican creole Chileans in the War for Independence, 1810-1826.

The Status of Anthropology in Chile

Chile recognizes the existence of Anthropology, but has no formally trained anthropologists, and has no chairs or departments of Anthropology. Due to the existence of archaeologic material pertaining to a number of the higher middle American cultures in northern Chile, and the existence of aboriginal populations in Araucania and Fuegia, both Chileans and foreigners have long carried on desultory investigations in archaeology, ethnology, linguistics, and physical anthropology. This work has been highly sporadic in time, spotted in areal distribution, and uneven in quantity, quality, and content subject.