The Rise and Fall of an Indigenous Homeland: The Itiyuro River Basin in Argentina

Abstract

This chapter traces the history of the Chané territory in the Itiyuro river basin (Salta Province, Argentina), from its time as an autonomous indigenous territory to the present. To reconstruct this history, the chapter builds on two kinds of historical evidence: archival documents about the region, and Chané historical memory. In so doing, it seeks to identify the concrete processes of colonization and territorial dispossession suffered by the Chané in the first half of the twentieth century. Further, by contrasting archival sources with local historical memory, the article highlights how this colonization process is understood in the indigenous historical imaginary today, and the concrete meanings that the Chané ascribe to their land.