Before 1976, knowledge of Uruguay’s remote past was limited to the research by untrained, non-professionals. Consens and Bello correctly point out that most of the knowledge produced about Uruguay’s remote past was done outside the university (Consens and Bello 1998).
One of those archaeologists (probably the first one in the history of Uruguay), Jose H. Figueira, described the Charrua in 1892: “Nada se sabe acerca de su historia en tiem-pos anteriores a la conquista” [nothing is known about their history before the conquest] (Figueira 1892). This means that his only sources about the Charrua, their culture and society, come from a rather unreliable source: texts penned by the chroniclers and explorers of colonial times. Apparently, it never occurred to him or his fellow aficionados to conduct an excavation in order to find out more about the Charrua of pre-Columbian times. His account of the Amerindians repeats all the knowledge produced, and passed from generation to generation, by the colonial authors. We learn, for instance, that the Charrua had no law, no religion, and only a very vague notion of the supernatural (Figueira 1892). Their energy was dedicated entirely to subsistence (in opposition to what Figueira calls civilization)—which in his opinion explains why their way of life remained almost intact during the centuries of the colonial period (Figueira 1892).
One statement showing how completely Figueira was immersed in the cognitive universe postulated by narratives of the nation-state, is the following: “fue menester destru-irlos” [it was necessary to destroy them] (Figueira 1892:33). Apparently the writer agreed that extermination campaigns were the only way to rid the nation of pesky natives who resisted modern, capitalist ways of life. In this respect his position was not very different from that of Zorrilla de San Martin.
Figueira has nothing better to say about the other indigenous peoples who populated the territory. He describes them as savages incapable of adapting to “civilized” life— indicating, in his opinion, that Amerindians were inferior vis-a-vis Western culture; an inferiority that is, again according to him, typical of the most backward races whose mental development never exceeded that of children. The Charrua and the other indigenous groups from the territory were examples, he seems to say, of arrested development.
These views on the local Amerindians resonate with the nation imagined by the elites: an imaginary with no room for groups unable, or unwilling to accept the rules of the game imposed by Western civilization. Figueira’s support of the master national narrative is a consequence not only of his ethnic and social affiliation (the Criollo elite) but also of his archaeological experience, for archaeology, as Margarita Diaz-Andreu and Timothy Champion (1996) point out, as an incipient discipline was involved in constructing or strengthening the narratives of the nation. According to these authors, nationalism heavily influenced not only the results of archaeological investigations but also the structure and ethos of the discipline. Indeed, the emergence of nationalism “stimulated the very creation of archaeology as a science and informed not only the organization of archaeological knowledge but also its very infrastructure. Without the existence of nationalism, archaeology or the study of the past might never have advanced beyond the status of a hobby or a pastime” (Diaz Andreu and Champion 1996). This very close relationship between nations and archaeology is based on a historical fact: the existence of the nation “implies the existence of a past which, for their own good and that of the individuals who belong to them, should be known and propagated” (Diaz-Andreu and Champion 1996: 3). In this way, the institutions and disciplines (the knowledge experts) endeavored to justify the territory in which the nation developed (Diaz-Andreu and Champion 1996).
Archaeology and the nation, then, go hand in hand. This is especially evident when the nation formulates laws to regulate national heritage and a museum system begins to emerge (Diaz-Andreu and Champion 1996). States played (and still play) a very important role in determining what past and what objects will be preserved. As Ian Hodder (1999), affirms, to a considerable degree, museums regulate the survival of the past.
In Uruguay, however, unlike the European countries that dominated the world and had an interest in appropriating the past of both their nation and those they colonized, archaeology did not have much support from the State. Yet, in spite of this unfavorable situation, archaeology started to develop in the 1880s. Of course, as seen in Figueira’s work, its practitioners were squarely on the side of the Criollo elite so the discipline’s research and findings reinforced national narratives.
Unlike some other Latin American countries, archaeology in Uruguay did not have an active, positive role, in the creation of narratives of the nation. It did not provide the public with narratives about sites that focused citizens’ emotions, making them feel part of a community—as in Mexico, Peru, and in other countries where indigenous ruins play an important role in constructing master narratives of nationality. In Uruguay, the early role played by archaeology was a negative one: instead of trying to re-appropriate the indigenous past, it negated it as inferior and as an inadequate foundation for constructing the nation. Unlike the archaeological endeavors in other Latin American countries, which built an image of the past based on the exaltation of the human qualities and virtues of the Amerindians of the past, Uruguayan images presented its indigenous inhabitants of remote times as primitive and savage.
Archaeology in Uruguay has not sustained national identity, as in countries like Ecuador. That is to say, Uruguayan archaeologists are not members of what Hugo Benavides (Chapter 53 in this volume) calls the national church. They have not, traditionally, produced positive, constituent (or constituting) narratives but instead a void, or blank page that has allowed the Criollo elites to write the history and narratives of the nation as another chapter in the development of Western civilization.
World History
