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Cuentan Los Chonkes: Leyendas De LA Patagonia Tehuelche
Leyendas de la Patagonia Tehuelche Mario Echeverria Baleta es hombre de muchos oficios, segun dice el La soledad y la necesidad de subsistir, hacen que el hombre aprenda sin maestro, el oficio de vivir. Nacio y paso su ninez en el campo, en epocas duras, con inviernos cruentos y veranos hermosos, pudiendo contemplar al glaciar Perito Moreno todos los dias, disfrutando de los colores de los ciclos mas lindos de la tierra. Conociendo a los pajaros, simplemente por el canto y a los animales por el rastro. Fue dibujante tecnico y topografo en Vialidad Provincial durante quince anos. La mayoria los paso caminando por la Provincia de Santa Cruz, trabajando y conociendo un poco mas... Otros quince anos, al frente del Museo Padre Manuel J. Molina . Luchador incansable por la proteccion y preservacion del Patrimonio Cultural y Natural. Entre muchos logros, podemos citar la proteccion de la Cueva de las Manos , en el rio Pinturas y de las pinturas rupestres de Punta Gualicho en Lago Argentino. Investigador y escritor, especialmente acerca de la cultura Tehuelche, sobre la que publico varios libros. Continua escribiendo y dando conferencias relacionadas con temas patagonicos. Es nativo de El Calafate y vive actualmente en Rio Gallegos.
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Published January 2, 2008
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September 7, 2020
Magellan named them the Patagones, colonizers called them Tehuelche. Among those First People who remain, and are the only true source of information, all agree the name is “Chonke” which means human.
I wondered why so many of these stories felt like the second half’s pages had been roughly torn out - leaving me saying “but..but..but?”
And then i read TA-AMTA:
This tale was about a woman with powerful magic, who lost her will to “feel, suffer and think” after the death of her son. She was unable to die, but she was able to turn herself into a piece of very heavy metal - roughly 100 kg. For many generations this lump of metal was considered “something very special and supernatural, and many stories were woven about its reason for being, flowering on the lips of the oldest folk with an air of mystery.
When the white man discovered it (George Musters in 1868), the lump of metal was still venerated and used for an annual test of strength by the Chonke…..The further one manages to carry it, the longer one will live.
All this remained until somebody, identifying it as a meteorite, took it off to Buenos Aires, and its present whereabouts are unknown.”
Maybe they are - ragged, like this with pages torn out; a revered sacred object, part of Chonke life for generations, is renamed and just removed, stolen, taken away, ripped off:
“present whereabouts are unknown.”
wtf?
Other tales seem to have such odd endings that I can’t imagine why they exist - showing primarily, of course, what a cultural pinhead i am. Feel free to fill me in on this one, for instance:
The fox is a sort of trickster. In this tale he talks the black-necked swan into flying him to one variety of heaven. He causes some people there to die (although already dead) by unstitching their anus, so they can eat again, although there is no food. Then he decides to descend back to earth by way of a woven rope. Oops - it’s too short. He takes the chance and falls the rest of the way.
“He hit the ground with such a jolt that he was knocked senseless for a long time, so long in fact that when he awoke a blackbush, covered with white flowers had grown on his head.”
End of story.
Then i flip from baffled to back in love with the First Peoples of Pachamama, of Turtle Island - those who lived without Guns and Steel and comfortably in sync with the rhythm of the Earth. And Get This:
After the hunt the Chonke would “..distribute the meat according to the established custom, whereby each receives his due, the most tasty pieces always being for the women and children.”
Reread that. Wow.
There were entire types of animal meat denied as food to women during the Buganda Kingdom, and we all know that women never ate first in Western Europe, or the Ottoman Empire, and still eat the left-overs in much of the world... i could go on, but - hell - i can’t really think of anywhere in the OLD world where the women and children got the most tasty pieces - again - feel free to teach me.
Humans are story makers. Some to entertain, some for propaganda. I love to read the stories and myths of other places - despite knowing that i lack much of the understanding to truly know why they choose to tell what they tell. These Chonke tales had very little WHY, and were rarely cautionary, they were mostly quite matter of fact.
After a continuous, junk food diet of happily ever after, Disney-fied BS, most kids from the USA would be upset with many of these tales, but then, they’d be upset with the ending of the Ramayana. What!! Sita and Rama don’t live happily ever after?
Nope.
And some white creep can suddenly take away your people’s venerated, special and supernatural, 100 kg magic mother, almost all of your land, and the vast majority of you.
Sorry, kid, whereabouts unknown.
I wondered why so many of these stories felt like the second half’s pages had been roughly torn out - leaving me saying “but..but..but?”
And then i read TA-AMTA:
This tale was about a woman with powerful magic, who lost her will to “feel, suffer and think” after the death of her son. She was unable to die, but she was able to turn herself into a piece of very heavy metal - roughly 100 kg. For many generations this lump of metal was considered “something very special and supernatural, and many stories were woven about its reason for being, flowering on the lips of the oldest folk with an air of mystery.
When the white man discovered it (George Musters in 1868), the lump of metal was still venerated and used for an annual test of strength by the Chonke…..The further one manages to carry it, the longer one will live.
All this remained until somebody, identifying it as a meteorite, took it off to Buenos Aires, and its present whereabouts are unknown.”
Maybe they are - ragged, like this with pages torn out; a revered sacred object, part of Chonke life for generations, is renamed and just removed, stolen, taken away, ripped off:
“present whereabouts are unknown.”
wtf?
Other tales seem to have such odd endings that I can’t imagine why they exist - showing primarily, of course, what a cultural pinhead i am. Feel free to fill me in on this one, for instance:
The fox is a sort of trickster. In this tale he talks the black-necked swan into flying him to one variety of heaven. He causes some people there to die (although already dead) by unstitching their anus, so they can eat again, although there is no food. Then he decides to descend back to earth by way of a woven rope. Oops - it’s too short. He takes the chance and falls the rest of the way.
“He hit the ground with such a jolt that he was knocked senseless for a long time, so long in fact that when he awoke a blackbush, covered with white flowers had grown on his head.”
End of story.
Then i flip from baffled to back in love with the First Peoples of Pachamama, of Turtle Island - those who lived without Guns and Steel and comfortably in sync with the rhythm of the Earth. And Get This:
After the hunt the Chonke would “..distribute the meat according to the established custom, whereby each receives his due, the most tasty pieces always being for the women and children.”
Reread that. Wow.
There were entire types of animal meat denied as food to women during the Buganda Kingdom, and we all know that women never ate first in Western Europe, or the Ottoman Empire, and still eat the left-overs in much of the world... i could go on, but - hell - i can’t really think of anywhere in the OLD world where the women and children got the most tasty pieces - again - feel free to teach me.
Humans are story makers. Some to entertain, some for propaganda. I love to read the stories and myths of other places - despite knowing that i lack much of the understanding to truly know why they choose to tell what they tell. These Chonke tales had very little WHY, and were rarely cautionary, they were mostly quite matter of fact.
After a continuous, junk food diet of happily ever after, Disney-fied BS, most kids from the USA would be upset with many of these tales, but then, they’d be upset with the ending of the Ramayana. What!! Sita and Rama don’t live happily ever after?
Nope.
And some white creep can suddenly take away your people’s venerated, special and supernatural, 100 kg magic mother, almost all of your land, and the vast majority of you.
Sorry, kid, whereabouts unknown.
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