Peuple de la forêt, peuple de la frontière

• Main Author: Vincent Clément
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Casa de Velázquez 2005-11-01
• Series: Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez
• Subjects: Araucania; Chile; Frontier; Pehuenches; Shift of identity; Territoriality
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/mcv/2098

The approaches adopted to the question of the identity of the peoples of the Araucan march of Chile have mainly been based upon the Indians’ relationship with nature, war or the frontier – that is, they have been mostly socio-historical or ethnographical approaches. Without going into the quality of such studies, the question of identity has only rarely been examined from the standpoint of territoriality. This article seeks, by taking the example of the Pehuenches, to place the relationship with territory at the centre of the issue of identity. The analysis embraces a long time-span, from the beginning of the Spanish conquest to the present day, and is organised around a number of questions. Did the territorial ties of the Pehuenches, isolated in the Araucan forest, constitute a specific identity distinct from that of other Indians of Araucania? Was their identity inseparable from a certain form of territorial organisation? How did the logic of the frontier influence their relationship with the territory? The irruption of the Spanish conquistadores on the Araucan frontier did not petrify the Pehuenches’ relationship with the territory for all time. Their territoriality evolved in the context of two overlapping logics – dominion over their forest habitat and belonging to a frontier region – which determined a shift of identity between the 17th and the 20th centuries. Commencing in 1993 and continuing through the first years of the 21st century, we are witnessing a rebirth of Pehuenche territoriality.