THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF CHILE

1
THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF CHILE

• A study of human rights for three indigenous
  groups in Chile

2
Indigenous Groups of Chile

• Atacameno
• Loa province - oases valleys and brooks
• Agriculture and grazing
• Aymara
• Andean Foothills of the Tarapaca Region
• Agriculture and cattle
• Mapuche
• Large area from Choapa river to gulfs of
  Reloncavi
• Horticulture and hunting/fishing

3
Chile at a Glance

• Population 16,928,900
• Indigenous Population 1,060,800 (6.6)
• Climate
• Desert in the north
• Mild and humid in the central areas
• Largest industries Mining, Manufacturing,
  Finance, Tourism,
• President Michelle Bachelet

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ILO Convention 169

• The ILO Convention recognizes the following
• Land and property rights for indigenous peoples.
• That indigenous and tribal peoples cultures and
  identities form an integral part of their lives -
  and that their way of life often differs from
  that of the dominant population.
• Equality and Liberty for indigenous peoples.
• Autonomy of indigenous peoples.
• Ratified by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
  Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile , Dominica, Ecuador,
  Fiji, Guatemala, Honduras, México, Nepal,
  Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, The Netherlands,
  Norway, Denmark and Spain.
• As of 9/16/09, OFFICIALLY Chilean law.
• Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.
  ILO Convention 169 20 years later.
  http//www.unpo.org/content/view/9746/81/

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Chilean Laws for Indigenous Groups

• Law No. 19253 (1993) Indigenous Peoples Special
  Law
• This legislation does not address indigenous
  rights but rather the development of indigenous
  ethnic groups.
• Law 19,253 establishes a limited status of
  recognition and protection of indigenous lands
  but ignores rights to resources.
• Law No. 19300 (1994) Environmental Framework Law
  
• This legislation regulates all major activities
  that may likely have an environmental impact. It
  maintains in force all previous environmental
  regulations
• Law No. 20249 (2008)Indigenous Coastal
  Protection
• This legislation establishes the coastal marine
  space of native peoples. This law amends current
  legislation to recognize and safeguard customary
  use of these areas by indigenous communities that
  are closely linked to the coastal area, thus
  enabling them to maintain their traditions and
  natural resource use.
• Code of Conduct of Indigenous Development Areas
• Regulates public and private investment on
  indigenous areas
• Relevance is questioned, as it is not law and is
  only a code of conduct. Companies can chose to
  acknowledge it or not.

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MAPUCHE
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Origin

• Arrived in America in 1000BC as Mongolians
• Held off original Spanish Conquest and was
  declared separate sovereignty.
• In 1810 Spanish were defeated by Chile and
  Argentina causing new governments to arise
• Mapuche fell victim to territorial conquest,
  aggravation caused by military, and constant
  persecution.
• Mapuche now follow democratically elected
  governments.

8
Natural Resources

• Relied heavily on the Land
• Livelihood was based on agriculture, hunting and
  gathering.
• When Europeans arrived they adopted iron
  metalworking and horseback riding.
• Europeans also taught them how to cultivate wheat
  and work with Sheep.

9
Language

• Native language is Mapudungun
• Not one with long-standing history
• Missionaries first documented the language
• Many variations of language
• 200,000 Mapuche can speak native tongue
• Mapudungun is being taught in some Chile schools

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Literacy Rate

• 37 who finished High School, 10.5 received
  higher education
• Mapuche over the age of 5 had a literacy rate of
  81.2
• Mapuche from ages 10 to 34 on average 96.2
• 85,000 are bi-lingual

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Religion

• Religious leader is know as Machi
• Machi have extensive knowledge of herbal
  medicine, sacred stones and sacred animals
• Today many follow the Roman Catholic religion
• They believe in their own god and they have their
  own since of sin and damnation
• The gods they believe in are described as
  invisible old people who have limited powers

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Mapuche Women

• Request representation on the tribal council in
  order to strengthen religion and language in
  community
• Usually can only find jobs pertaining to domestic
  services
• Low paying jobs with little skill or
• specialization
• Triple discrimination
• Women usually teach culture at home
• Women are healers and herbalists

13
Atacameño
Atacameño
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Natural Resources

• The communities traditionally controlled and
  organized the natural resources such as water and
  land, but economic market forces have
  increasingly marginalized these things from their
  control.
• The expansion of mining activity has had a great
  impact both on their lands and on their surface
  and underground waters
• The Atacama holds the world's largest
  inventories of copper, nitrate, borax, and guano.
  Furthermore, silver deposits were discovered

15
Development

• Settled at time of first agricultural-livestock
  settlements developed around the Atacama oasis.
• Built canals to channel water for irrigation, and
  used terrace systems.
• Agricultural development opened Atacama to
  caravan traffic between cultures.
• 1999 government promotes Programas Origenes,
  to encourage development and improve economic
  and cultural conditions of indigenous peoples.
• Ecotourism in San Pedro de Atacama sponsored by
  the ADI and the Programas Origenes to reverse
  the marginalization of the Atacama.

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Language

• Kunza, which means "our", was the dominant
  language
• Belonging to the macro-Chibcha linguistic family
  and Paezano sub-family, Kunza comes from the west
  of Colombia and Ecuador.
• Kunza is not in the Andean-Ecuatorial linguistic
  family, to which the three indigenous languages
  spoken in modern continental Chile belong.

IHola!

• The Atacameño people ended up speaking four
  languages Kunza, Aymara, Quechua, and
  Castilian.
• Kunza is practically a dead language, used
  only in ceremonies and ritual songs.

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Education and Literacy

• Mostly agrarian knowledge
• Skilled in various art forms (textiles, ceramics,
  basketry, metalwork)
• Used both petroglyphs and cactus spines for
  knitting.
• Of the Chilean indigenous population,
  approximately 8.2 of those older than 10 years
  is analphabetic
• Men report 6.5 of illiteracy, as opposed to
  10.0 among women.
• In rural zones, illiteracy amounts to 15.0,
  while in the cities it goes down to 4.6.
• Out of every 100 natives of 50 years old and
  more, around 25 are analphabetic.
• Out of every 100 natives aged 15 to 25 years old
  only 1.5 are illiterate.

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Religion

• Embodied in festivals, dances, and ceremonies,
  which are deeply tied with nature
• Follow an Andean-Catholic religious cultural
  model, creating a dual thinking that is applied
  to diverse aspects of religious and social life.
• Most of the ritual activities and traditions are
  associated with important religious dates, and
  each settlement has its own patron saint (San
  Pedro in San Pedro de Atacama, San Lucas in
  Toconao, San Roque in Peine, etc.).
• Main offerings are made to the Pachamama, the
  earth the mountain spirits, tata-cerros and to
  the water, tata-putarajni, as well as to the
  ancestors, tata-abuelos
• Traditional patterns of beliefs, knowledge and
  symbolism, based on mythological conceptions,
  ritually reenacted, still remain today
• Figures from the last census, carried out in
  2002, show that 10.8 of the 4969 inhabitants
  declare themselves Evangelical, and 70.7
  Catholic.

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Cultural Heritage Social Life

• Today there are 3,000 direct descendents of
  Atacameño culture the majority are peasants
  whose lives revolve around agriculture and animal
  grazing.
• Ceremonies form an active part of life -
  festivities are ritual reenactments of their
  traditions.
• Main Atacameno festivities areThe Carnival, The
  cleaning of irrigation canals (La limpia de
  canales),The flowering of the livestock (El
  enfloramiento del ganado), and the pre-hispanic
  ancestors cults, tata-abuelos (El culto a los
  tata abuelos o antepasados prehispànicos).

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Autonomy Political Representation

• After the War of the Pacific, the Chilean
  government seized this territory, so from the end
  of the 19th century until the mid 20th century
  the policy of the Chilean state was directed
  towards homogenizing these communities into a
  single Chilean whole, where they were treated as
  peasant farmers, miners, artisans, etc., without
  any indigenous connotation
• To get the water, we even went to Santiago...
  the intention was to reach the President himself,
  but, finally the Minister of Public Works saw us.
  In that sublime moment, we put to him our
  concerns and he gave us his commitment to build
  the channels that would carry the water to
  Sequitor.........but many people dont know, the
  effort this required, and how we have struggled
  to achieve it, because, at the end of the day, we
  are all Chileans Sequitor Community Meeting,
  February 2004.
• The indigenous law includes the creation of
  Indigenous Development Areas (Areas de Desarrollo
  Indigena or ADI), territorial land upon which the
  states administrative bodies focus their
  activity to benefit the harmonious development of
  the indigenous people and their communities.
• The district of San Pedro de Atacama contains the
  ADI of Atacama la Grande (Supreme Decree of 10th
  March 1997), which looks to serve the development
  needs of the 14 Atacameño communities living in
  the Salar de Atacama San Pedro de Atacama, Coyo,
  Sequitor, Santiago de Rio Grande, Machuca,
  Solor, Socaire, Peine, Quitor, Talabre, Camar,
  Larache, Catarpe, and Toconao. This measure seeks
  to institutionalise the incorporation of
  ethnicity in the relationship between the state
  and the Atacameño community.

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The Aymara People

• Human Rights and Realities

http//www.andeanaymara.com/
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How Development imposes on Cultural Rights

• Access to resources and land
• Education and Language
• Employment
• Religion
• Limits cultural practices and tradition-medicine

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Cultural Heritage Traditions

• The Aymara are an indigenous group that depend on
  the land and local water sources to sustain their
  economic, spiritual and social life.
• Since the beginning, the Aymara people have lived
  from the herding of lamas and sheep, the
  agriculture on valleys and high mountains and
  fishing on the Lake Titicaca.
• Agriculture and animal husbandry have
  historically sustained the local economy and are
  still the main activities today.
• The Aymara have a complementary economy based on
  the principle of the ayni which is very
  important in their culture. The ayni is the
  practice of reciprocity or product barter between
  Aymara groups.

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Natural Resources and Land

• For the Aymara, access to their territory is
  relevant because it provides ecosystem services,
  especially related to the water cycle, in the dry
  environments surrounding the hyper arid Atacama
  Desert.
• The World Health Organization estimates that 1.7
  billion people lack access to clean water, and
  the UN Human Rights Commission has been
  considering a declaration of water as a basic
  human right. 
• The Chilean Government has used several economic
  instruments over the years to promote in- and
  off-farm irrigation infrastructure. Indigenous
  communities, however, show limited access to
  these subsidies.

25
3rd Party Development

• Mining in the region
• In 1994, the Cerro Colorado Mining Company (CMCC)
  began copper mining operations in the area. In
  2002 the Aymara noticed for the first time that
  the water level had fallen and the wetlands were
  drying up. CMCC said it was pumping out 125
  liters of water per second, but denies
  responsibility for the condition of the wetland.
  According to the company it is due to floods
  caused by high rainfall in 2001, a natural event
  which combined with an effect of the pumping
  mainly affected the natural flow of the
  watersheds.
• In 2005, the government Directorate General of
  Water (DGA) concluded that this ecosystem had
  been dried out by underground water extraction by
  the CMCC copper mine. The wetlands in this area
  are fed by surface and underground waters. They
  have been legally protected since 1992.

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Education and Language

• Natives speak Aymara as well as Spanish
• Aymara belongs to the Jaqi linguistic family
  major indigenous language of southern Peru and
  northern Chile.
• Parents teach Aymara to their children as a way
  of respecting and preserving their culture.
• Aymara has 3 million speakers (between Peru,
  Bolivia, and Chile), but are often excluded from
  state political participation
• There is much indigenous support for language
  renewal in Chile, mostly to overcome social
  prejudice.
• Lack of linguistic and cultural understanding has
  caused an imbalance between the indigenous people
  and outside developers.
• The strong value placed on rural work in the
  Aymara community makes indigenous minors
  vulnerable to labor and economic exploitation and
  to dropping out of school.
• 1996 Chilean government created Bilingual
  Intercultural Education Program Promotes diverse
  linguistic and cultural learning in schools. Has
  yet to fully succeed.
• Recent government project Incorporation of
  Indigenous Language Model into the subject of
  Language and Communication, alongside Spanish and
  English. Hopefully this project will succeed by
  the end of 2010.

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Religion

• The religion practiced by the Aymara is a
  combination of Roman Catholicism and traditional
  Andean beliefs.
• Spirituality for the Aymara is not manifested
  exclusively in the sacred or religious, but
  expressed in the ordinary, everyday life.
• The Aymara conceive of the Supreme Being as the
  creator of all things, everything was made by God
  -- what we can see and feel and what we cannot
  see and cannot feel (the unknown).
• Contemporary religious beliefs have are rooted in
  Inca tradition (the Aymara were conquered by the
  Inca in the mid 1400s).
• One of these beliefs is expressed by engaging in
  traditional medicine and ritual offerings to the
  Inca sun god Inti and the goddess of the earth
  Pachamama.
• Within the community, the Aymara have a group of
  natural healers and medicine workers known as the
  Yatiri. These practitioners play a vital role in
  Aymara cultural identity.

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Legislation and Action

• The Indigenous Law Nº 19.253 from October 5,
  1995, initiated the regularization of indigenous
  properties with the identification of their
  limits and resources. This law recognizes the
  existence of ethnic groups, and permits the
  existence of Areas of Indigenous Development.
• On November 30, 2009, the Chilean Supreme Court
  decided in favor of granting the Aymara
  indigenous water use rights.
• This ruling, is the first judicial application of
  ILO Convention 169 in Chile, it was ratified a
  year earlier in September 2008.
• In the eyes of environmental groups this ruling
  signifies the first step in reclaiming resource
  rights from private, and often foreign-owned,
  businesses and restoring them to the public
  realm. 
• For the Aymara a greater significance this
  decision serves as the beginning of a pivotal
  change in the legal framework addressing their
  territorial claims and rights. ?

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Indigenous Issues

• ENDESA hydroelectricity
• CELCO cellulose processing plant
• CODELCO mining
• Assimilation
• Fuerzas Especiales de Carabineros de Chile
  police unit

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Indigenous Defenders

• Observatory for Indigenous Rights (Observatorio
  Ciudadano)
• National Corporation for Indigenous Development
  (CONADI)
• President Bachelet
• UN and ILO