Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
observed basic political and religious loyalties at the village or clan
level. These peoples recognized only their local leaders and disputed
with arms territory and resources even with other groups of the same
culture and language. Every male hunter or cultivator also became a
warrior. Every female subordinated herself to the rigid requirements
of group survival and maintenance of the warrior male. Some groups
enlarged their territories while others retreated to the poorer lands to
form a complex and fluid map of ethnic and linguistic diversity across
southern South America.
What the indigenous inhabitants of the Southern Cone had accom-
plished in terms of establishing their lives of group autonomy on the
land would determine how the first Spaniards established their hold
of the region. Unlike Mexico and Peru, each of which fell within a
few decades of Spanish arrival, it took the better part of the 300-year
colonial period for Europeans to become established in the Southern
Cone; after all, there was no empire to conquer in Argentina and
certainly no wealth had existed to sustain a large population of
Europeans. Therefore, the Spaniards had to settle the region through
a long series of small conquests over the indigenous inhabitants, all
the while developing a European-style commercial and agricultural
base. They had to painstakingly defeat nearly each and every decen-
tralized group in piecemeal fashion. The defeat of no one clan group
resulted in the submission of their indigenous neighbors. Even then,
several important native groups continued their successful resistance
for nearly 400 years following the arrival of the first European. A
summary survey of the pre-Columbian peoples of the Southern Cone
will suggest the reasons that individualism and independence have
become so entrenched in Argentine society.
The Agriculturists of Northern Argentina
Scholars believe that the Americas remained uninhabited by humans
until a drop in the level of the Pacific Ocean uncovered a land bridge
from Asia where the Aleutian Islands of Alaska are presently located.
Commencing approximately 50,000 years ago, several Asian peoples
of different origins and ethnic backgrounds migrated in successive
waves across the Bering land bridge. Subsequently, the sea levels rose
and covered the land, leading the migrants to develop culture and
technologies wholly separate from those of the so-called Old World
of Asia, Europe, and Africa. By 13,000
b
.
c
. these migratory hunter-
gatherers had moved through the Darién jungles of Panama and
