Mythologies of the Charrúa Tribe

“We are still here: The fight to be recognized as Indigenous in Uruguay”

The Charrúa were an indigenous people or Indigenous Nation of the Southern Cone in present-day Uruguay and the adjacent areas in Argentina (Entre Ríos) and Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul). They were a semi-nomadic people who sustained themselves mainly through hunting and gathering. Since resources were not permanent in every region, they would constantly be on the move. Rain, drought, and other environmental factors determined their movement. For this reason they are often classified as seasonal nomads.

The Charrúa people were massacred in a campaign in 1831 by the colonial forces in Uruguay known as the Massacre of Salsipuedes. Though largely erased from modern histories, some communities of the Charrúa survived outside of Uruguay in Argentina and Brazil. It is believed that there are approximately between 160,000 and 300,000 individuals in Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil today who are descendants of surviving Charrúa. Contemporary descendants of the Charrúa have created organizations and advocate for the memory of the indigenous people.

Last of the Charrua

Uruguay is said to be the only Latin American country without an indigenous population. However, they did have a fearsome warrior tribe living in the country for thousands of years. Believed to be the last, or only, true Uruguayan indigenous culture, the Charrúa lived in Uruguay and neighboring areas of Argentina and Brazil starting 4000 years ago. The genocide of the Charrúa began in 1833 by Uruguay's first president, with four captives being sent to France as a sideshow. Recently debate has re-emerged on the existence of full-blooded descendents of this indigenous tribe thought to be extinct. Documents concerning the Charrúa in Uruguay before the arrival of the Spanish have yet be discovered. Thus, the history and origins of the Charrúa culture before colonial times remains somewhat uncertain. However, archaeological evidence shows that the Charrúa culture began in Uruguay roughly 4000 years ago, when they may have been pushed south by the Guarani tribe. The Charrúa people were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived throughout Uruguay and the Northeast of Argentina as well as Southern Brazil. It is known that they were adept with the bow and arrow and when horses arrived, they became quite good at hunting wild cattle.

Charrúa, South American Indians who inhabited the grasslands north of the Río de la Plata in a territory somewhat larger than modern Uruguay. Little is known of their language. Linguistically related groups, including the Yaró, Guenoa, Bohané, and Minuan, have also been subsumed in the generic name Charrúa. The Charrúa were hunters and gatherers, and after the introduction of the horse they lived by catching wild cattle. They were fierce in war, using the skulls of their fallen foes as ceremonial drinking cups. They were good bowmen and also used bolas, slings, and spears. In their social and economic patterns they resembled other Patagonian and Pampean nomads. On the death of a close relative they would lacerate themselves and cut off finger joints. Since the colonial settlement of the grasslands, the Charrúa have ceased to exist as an independent society.

The Charrúa are an Indigenous People or Indigenous Nation of the Southern Cone in present-day Uruguay and the adjacent areas in Argentina and Brazil. Prior to European colonization they were a semi-nomadic people who sustained themselves mainly through hunting and gathering. Since resources were not permanent in every region, they would constantly be on the move. Rain, drought, and other environmental factors determined their movement. The drastic demographic reduction of the Charrúas did not occur until the administration of the first president of Uruguay, Fructuoso Rivera. He organized a genocide campaign known as La Campaña de Salsipuedes in 1831. This campaign was composed of three different attacks in three different places: "El Paso del Sauce del Queguay", "El Salsipuedes", and a passage known as "La cueva del Tigre".

Uruguay is the only Latin American country that at present lacks Native populations and little is known about its prehistoric populations. In the construction of National identity, the unique reference to Natives is about Charrúa Indians, one of the most important ethnic groups that lived in the territory and exterminated in the 1830s. In 1833, four survivors were taken to be exhibited and studied in France, becoming martyrs and a symbol of their nation. The skeletal remains of Chief Perú were preserved and studied mainly by Rivet.

Having survived 300 years of colonization and a planned massacre in Uruguay, members of the Charrúa indigenous tribe are resurfacing to demand recognition from a country whose foundations were built on the graves of their ancestors. It is generally believed that Uruguay is populated exclusively by the descendants of the settlers, who were predominantly Spanish and Italian, but recent genetic studies have discredited this theory. Now around 2,000 people belonging to an ethnic group whose identity has long been denied have joined a movement that calls for issues of genocide and discrimination to be finally addressed.

The Amerindian group known as the Charrúas inhabited Uruguay at the timing of European colonial contact. Even though they were extinguished as an ethnic group as a result of a genocide, Charrúan heritage is part of the Uruguayan identity both culturally and genetically. While mitochondrial DNA studies have shown evidence of Amerindian ancestry in living Uruguayans, here we undertake whole-genome sequencing of 10 Uruguayan individuals with self-declared Charruan heritage. We detect chromosomal segments of Amerindian ancestry supporting the presence of indigenous genetic ancestry in living descendants. Specific haplotypes were found to be enriched in “Charrúas” and rare in the rest of the Amerindian groups studied. Some of these we interpret as the result of positive selection, as we identified selection signatures and they were located mostly within genes related to the infectivity of specific viruses. Historical records describe contacts of the Charrúas with other Amerindians, such as Guaraní, and patterns of genomic similarity observed here concur with genomic similarity between these groups. Less expected, we found a high genomic similarity of the Charrúas to Diaguita from Argentinian and Chile, which could be explained by geographically proximity. Finally, by fitting admixture models of Amerindian and European ancestry for the Uruguayan population, we were able to estimate the timing of the first pulse of admixture between European and Uruguayan indigenous peoples in approximately 1658 and the second migration pulse in 1683. Both dates roughly concurring with the Franciscan missions in 1662 and the foundation of the city of Colonia in 1680 by the Spanish.

According to the Charrúa, the Charrúan people killed Spanish explorer Juan Díaz de Solís during his 1515 voyage up the Río de la Plata, but this was contradicted by researchers who said that the Charrúa people were not cannibalistic and that it was actually the Guaranis who did it. Later, it was proven that there was no direct testimony of this moment. Following the arrival of European settlers, the Charrúa, along with the Chana, strongly resisted their territorial invasion. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Charruas were confronted by cattle exploitation that strongly altered their way of life, causing famine and forcing them to rely on cows and sheep. Unfortunately, those were in that epoch increasingly privatized. Malones (raids) were resisted by settlers who freely shot any indigenous people who were in their way. Later, Fructuoso Rivera - Uruguay's first president, who possessed a hacienda – organized the Charruas's genocide. Since 11 April 1831, when the Salsipuedes (meaning "Get-out-if-you-can") campaign was launched by a group led by Bernabé Rivera, nephew of Fructuoso Rivera, it is said that the Charruas were extinct.

The Charrúa Indians allegedly killed the very first Spaniards to arrive on their shores, initiating three centuries of resistance and rebellion that has become a pivotal part of Uruguayan identity. Charrúa history has become part of Uruguayan mythology with the Charrúa Indians often portrayed as heroic martyrs. The reality of the repression of Charrúa Indians is indisputable. Mass genocide took place on a population that also suffered dwindling numbers from exposure to diseases and intermarriage with Europeans. The genocide continued until the population became extinct in the 1830’s. This leads me to the Charrúa skeleton that found its way home to Uruguay in 2002 after almost two centuries abroad. In 1831, the Uruguay government carried out a massacre against the Charrúa. Most of the men were killed while women and children were “given away” to Spanish and Creole families. Four of the captured Indians were shipped to Paris where they were studied at the national history museum. One of the Charrúa was Chief Vaimaca Peru who’s remains were the only ones preserved after the captives died.

The Charrúa were the dominant tribe of indigenous people in the region known today as Uruguay. In 1831, Uruguay’s first president, Fructuoso Rivera, led the massacre of Salsipuedes (Get-out-if-you-can) in an attempt to exterminate the indigenous population. Most surviving Charrúas were sold as slaves to wealthy families in Montevideo, separating children from their mothers in order to eradicate their language and culture. Uruguay established itself as a country with no “indians.” Only in the 1990s did descendants of the Charrúa slowly start to reclaim their ancestry and associations were established to fight for recognition of Charrúa lineage and contribute to the recovery and preservation of indigenous culture and identity. In 2004, a group of artists led by Ciro Rodriguez created the Grupo Choñik (now Clan Choñik), a Charrúa collective seeking to recuperate the culture of their ancestors and defend their heritage through performance and ritual.