Sergio Villalobos: certainties to cause controversy

The historian awarded the National Prize of the field, ensures that they are neither genuine pehuenches Mapuche or Araucanians, but a derivation of the Huarpe Indians of Cuyo, Argentina. It also ensures that pehuenches allied with the Spanish-Creole to avoid being victims of rival native bands.

Sergio Villalobos Rivera knows that his research findings will not please the indigenous world, especially the most radical. And it is Pehuenches, the situation is not going to be very different.

"It's hard to take him because he has no understanding of what is happening. They act on impulse because there are political interests behind. They are based on oral traditions but there is a scientific and methodological work that would sustain what they say, "reflects Villalobos. However, this position makes this "does not mean that we should not try to let them know the issue."

Is that for the National History Award, which was some time in the halls of the Union Club to discuss the history of The Angels and the area, and are years of research and tours of the sectors, which are have led to these certainties.

This work, he says, has been corroborated by the work of several specialists fronts but, he adds, are known only in the scientific and rarely transcend the mass media.

Certainties

The first of his certainties pehuenches states that "genuine" are not Mapuche or Araucanians, but a derivation of huarpes indigenous groups living in the region of Cuyo, Argentina, who had their customs, language and physical type characteristic.

Anthropological studies have concluded the matter, he says, that the physical type corresponds to a branch of those Indians who meet certain characteristics. First of all, were between 1.70 to 1.72 meters in height, body type that has never existed among Mapuches or Araucanians. In addition, the texture of the skull bone (especially bony) is far from what can be seen in the so-called Mapuche itself.

It is still possible to find, he says, some physical types as described in some parts of the High Bio-Bio and Antuco.

He also argues that this group were very few. Among some 10.000 and 15.000 preferably living across the range, but exert influence from the area of St. Fabian of Alico (the north) to the area of ​​Lonquimay.

However, he adds, the Araucanians were out and imposed their customs. Says her life was precarious. They lived in constant anxiety. Trasandino side, beset by bands huilliches, and country, by the Araucanians.

"The dispute was constant. Therefore, the Pehuenches had to ally with the Spanish-Creole so that they defend them, "he says in his most controversial statement. Even states that sometimes came to fight together against the Araucanians.

This has been holding back because characters as relevant as Bernardo O'Higgins himself, when he arrived to take charge of the Farm The Canteras, had much appreciation for the Pehuenches. But he argues that the relationship was not free but it was based on a form of trade that favored both. While marketed pehuenches salt, ostrich feathers and skins, Hispanic natives did the same with horses, iron and alcohol.

Later, however, with the start of the Independence, there was chaos in relationships that were already settled where pehuenches were seduced by the warring factions (and Creole patriots) to fight each one by his side.

And there, and began to write another story.