All
societies owe their present to their ancestors; history, culture, language,
among others, are all inherited through generations. Culture is formed by
various elements that over time have shaped the main features of a society.
Thanks to this, we are able to identify and distinguish a group from another;
this is what we call identity.
In
spite of this, in Chile there is a constant negation of the particular cultural
elements inherited from our land’s ancestors. In general, Chileans feel a
constant attraction for foreign elements, and not only that; they even shape
their own identity by using these unfamiliar elements. By doing this, they
ignore their genuine cultural roots. But in this article we don’t want focus in
this lack of recognition; we intend to go deeper into these elements and see
how they really affect our idiosyncrasy.
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As
we mentioned previously there are various aspects in which you can notice a
clear influence of the indigenous people. They can be common things, such as
the very name our country has, a word that has its origins on native languages.
In Quechua, “chili” or “chilli” means “flor y nata de la tierra” (“crème de la
crème of the earth”, so to speak), whereas in Aymara “chili” means “where the
land ends”, but in reality, there is no agreement in which is the correct
origin. Following this line, it’s important to highlight the variation of the
use of Spanish in Chile, which is mixed with many regional words unique to our
language, giving it a special identity.
In
the linguistic aspect, we have the integration of different languages that
characterise our dialects, such as the repeated use of words of Indigenous
origin, for names of cities and for common concepts used in the daily life of
the Chilean society. For example:
- Apoquindo:
apu: chief (name of a cacique)
- Atacama;
tacama: black duck or a meeting.
- Cacao:
cacahual: main ingredient of chocolate
- Cancha:
kancha: site for racing and gaming.
These
are only a few words of the hundreds that mark the defining cultural nuance of
our speech and give us our own linguistic identity.
Another
aspect of our daily live in which we notice a strong influence of indigenous
culture is the cuisine. The recipes made with corn and potatoes, like
charquicán or humitas, are dishes that survived the Spanish conquest and
currently are one of the main icons of the local cuisine. These products, among
others, are native of our continent and they are used in almost every recipe,
so their influence and importance in our cuisine is vital, as a mark of the
strong relationship of our customs with the pre-Columbian past.
These
elements are easy to notice in our daily life, but few people can appreciate
and understand the importance of our cultural identity.
We
constantly criticize the fact that we focus on what the "developed"
countries have and we ignore what we are. We should to take into account and
understand that, unfortunately, our country and every country in Latin America
was born from the annihilation of civilization and the imposition of another
one. Our aim for the future should be to keep the traditions and identity that
represent us, and ideally, we should brush off most the costumes that have been
copied by our society.
What
do you think about the current chilean society? Can we progress without
ignoring our forefathers? Should the government be involved in the “rescue” of
our identity? Or is our society fine as it is?
I think that the current chilean society is determined to resemble and imitate developed countries, and that's the reason why it ignores its culture and what it are. On the other hand, I think not only the government should be involved in this, because I think that each of us must create awareness about what we are and above all, we don't must despise our past and ancestors.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally agree with Danae in that current Chilean society just wants to resemble development countries, but our country, along to other countries in Latin America, have a long history before the conquerors arrived on this side of the world. And it should not be forgotten. We can’t ignore our ancestors’ culture, because they form part of our proper identity. As you said in your article, just few people understand the importance of our cultural identity.
ReplyDeleteWe must begin by accepting that our roots come from our ancestors, and educate people to respect it. I think that the task of government is to be an example for society in relation to respect our cultural roots, if people don't see that there is respect from the government, they will not feel "forced" to respect our ancestors.