Sobre la memoria y El Olvido: Los difuntos Selk'Nam y el cementerio de la Misión Salesiana Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria (Río Grande, Tierra Del Fuego)

Abstract

In this paper we intend to approach the dynamics of the memory and forgetting of the Selk'nam deceased in a particular case of the colonial process of Tierra del Fuego. We focus on the cemetery of the Salesian mission Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria, in Río Grande. This is where we can approach more than 100 years of history, built around the indigenous people who died between the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. First, we analyze mortuary practices (especially, the actions oriented towards the treatment and disposition of the bodies), and the ways in which some of them could have shaped (and could have been shaped by) mortuary space. Later, and considering the diversity of social actors, power relations and cultural meanings, we interpret the above-mentioned tensions between memory and forgetting.