First Peoples Spirituality

The first inhabitants of the territory based their cosmology on reading the sky map, referring to natural phenomena and perpetuating the memory of the Ancients. The Yamanas believed in a supreme being, called Watauinewa (the Ancient One), creator of all things in the world; many other deities and spirits populated their sacred pantheon. One of the highlights of their lives was the initiation rites for young men and women: a compulsory celebration and a dexterity contest; the young people acquired all the rights of adults (hunting, marriage, founding a family), which ensured a certain social cohesion. Only later, the sacred rites were taught to them, during a ceremony called Kina. The Mapuche, in particular, who are still present in Chilean and Argentinean Patagonia, continue to maintain an intimate relationship with their ancestral culture. Among the Mapuche, the admapu is the set of symbols, practices and traditional beliefs. According to them, they were created by Nguenechen, a god with four components: el Anciano (fucha), la Anciana (kude), el Joven and la Jovena. Ngunechen is the creator god who controls life on Earth: he is the origin of everything. According to their beliefs, the Mapuche are surrounded by ancestral spirits (wangulen), nature spirits (Ngen) and evil spirits (wekufe). To understand the relationship between Mapuche culture and nature, it is important to understand the idea of a supreme beneficent being, who helps and protects human beings, fighting against the forces of evil and to determine the importance of the concept of Ngen, the spirit of nature that maintains the cosmic balance and protects the fauna and flora. Evil creatures, powerful snakes, mythical birds, and malevolent sorcerers populate the Mapuche legends with many philosophical overtones. An important figure in Mapuche culture alongside the lonko (chief), the religious chief (shaman or machi) is the bearer of legends, ancestral beliefs and spiritual practices. He is always represented by his rehue (a totem) and his kultrung (or cultrún), a drum, which he designs according to the spiritual strength conferred on him by the Ngunechen. Recognizable on the Mapuche flag, the circular shape of the kultrung symbolizes the infinity of the world. The cross on its surface indicates the spaces into which the world is divided and the central part contains the core and the force that maintains the balance between the vertical spaces formed by Wenu Mapu (the land above), where the beneficial deities and ancient ancestors live; Nag Mapu (the land below), where all the living are and Minche Mapu (the land below), where the evil spirits live. The machi is a man or woman (often thelonko's wife) who is valued above all for his or her healing skills. He is the great connoisseur of a complex rite of therapeutic action called Machitún, a ceremony designed to heal patients of the "evil" that strikes them. The machi eliminate evil spirits, the wekufe, through shamanic prayers, cultrún drumming, trances, massages, herbal infusions and dances. The ritual communication established between the machi and his beneficent spirit begins at dusk and ends at dawn. This ceremony is still alive and continues to be performed in many communities. Today Mapuche beliefs are built on the principle of syncretism, a concept introduced by Christian evangelization (a kind of fusion between Christianity and Andean cosmology).

Evangelism

The conditions under which Argentina, and South America in general, was evangelized explain why Christianity is present throughout the region today. At the end of the 15th century, Christopher Columbus set sail for America at a time when the Catholic Monarchs were engaged in an intensive evangelization and colonization drive (with Africa and Grenada in particular). Columbus signed the capitulations of Santa Fe with the Catholic Monarchs, in other words, he was endowed with a political power that he was expected to deploy in the places he was about to discover. He was also renamed Christophoros: "he who carries Christ". A significant event, announcing Iberian supremacy and the will to carry the Catholic religion. After a slow and painful Conquest, the Spanish and Portuguese were to share almost the entire South American continent, where they had succeeded in gaining a foothold thanks in no small part to the Church's support for colonization. The Spanish colonists set up the encomienda system, a practice of serfdom in which hundreds of Amerindians were grouped together on the territory to work without remuneration and to evangelize them.

The Jesuits. At the same time, Jesuit missionaries arrived at the end of the 16th century and applied a more progressive method of evangelization in their missions, instructing the natives in the faith while protecting them from slave hunters. First arriving in Santiago, Chile, in 1593, the missions then spread from Chiloé to Nahuel Huapi via the archipelagos of Tierra del Fuego. Several Jesuit missions were also established in the province of Misiones, in northeastern Argentina, and in the province of Córdoba in the early 17th century. Innovative and particularly committed to education and the arts, the Jesuits established veritable villages. Competing with the encomienda system, the mission model was the envy of many Spanish planters. What's more, the Society of Jesus, shocked by its modernity and theological positions, fell into disfavor in Europe, and was even dissolved by the King of Spain. The Jesuits were expelled from America in 1767 and their missions destroyed. Roland Joffé's fine film Mission (1986) recounts this episode in the Misiones region. The San Ignacio Mini mission, 60 km from Posadas, is one of the most famous of the Jesuit missions and is a Unesco World Heritage site. You can still admire the few red sandstone ruins of the site, which once included a church, baptistery, cemetery, school, hospital and housing for the Guaranis. Further south, in Córdoba, the Jesuits founded six large estancias for livestock breeding and farming. Also listed as a Unesco World Heritage site, the perfectly preserved buildings can be visited today.

The Salesians - a congregation founded in Turin by St. John Bosco in 1859 - established themselves at the end of the 19th century on the banks of the Río Negro, before moving deeper into Patagonia: they succeeded in establishing themselves at the Río Santa Cruz, before definitively setting up a mission on the shores of the Strait of Magellan and the archipelagos of Tierra del Fuego. Despite the harsh climate, they persevered, gathering several thousand inhabitants and baptizing the natives. Marriages, schooling, orphanages and chapels followed. Among the Salesians was missionary and explorer Alberto Maria de Agostini. Sensitive to the plight of the indigenous peoples who were then suffering from the wave of colonization, he devoted much of his life to them, leading several expeditions and writing several books. In Río Grande, you can visit the former Salesian mission founded in 1893. While the Salesians may have played a beneficial role in the development of Tierra del Fuego, protecting the indigenous populations - the Selk'nam in particular - from massacres perpetrated by new landowners and gold miners, their protection and education in the civilized world paradoxically accelerated the disappearance of these indigenous peoples. The Chilean mission on Isla Dawson is one of the most significant examples. Abandoning their nomadic way of life and their culture, deprived of landmarks and victims of the diseases brought by the Europeans, the Fuegian populations saw their numbers decline precipitously.

The influence of the Church

Elected on March 13, 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the 226th pontiff and the first South American pope. The pope of the poor, as underlined by the choice of his name, Francis, in reference to Saint Francis of Assisi. Even if freedom of worship has been recognized in Argentina since 1853, you'll soon be caught up in the reality of the country as you talk to the locals: you soon realize that society is still very much imbued with this Christian culture. And it's only recently that a certain freedom has crept into the political sphere, since until 1994, the Argentine president had to be a member of the Church. This trend is known as destape (imagine popping a cork in a bottle!): a more libertarian trend is circulating just about everywhere, especially among young people. As a result, according to a study published by the country's National Council for Scientific and Technical Research, the number of Catholics fell by 13% between 2008 and 2019. Furthermore, it's important to note that Christianity here is the result of blending different local beliefs with the Bible. As a result, there are many overlaps between saints and Andean figures. Along the roads, we often come across the famous "Santos", bearers of legends and beliefs specific to the region. These include the Difunta Correa or the Gauchito Gil, a modern-day Robin Hood, whose altar is red, covered with flags and scarves of the same color. In the northern provinces, especially Salta and Jujuy, you may hear of the "Coquena", who, according to indigenous beliefs, is a protective dwarf who watches over the vicuña and guanaco populations. Discreet and elusive, he runs fast while whistling through the mountains: so it's obviously very difficult to meet him!