The last Charrua Indian; (Uruguay): analysis of the remains of Chief Vaimaca Per&x00FA;.

Abstract

Uruguay is the only Latin American country that at present lacks Native populations and little is known about its prehistoric populations. In the construction of National identity, the unique reference to Natives is about Charra Indians, one of the most important ethnic groups that lived in the territory and exterminated in the 1830s. In 1833, four survivors were taken to be exhibited and studied in France, becoming martyrs and a symbol of their nation. The skeletal remains of Chief Per&x00FA; were preserved and studied mainly by Rivet1; these are the only remains certainly identified as belonging to a Charr&x00FA;a. In 2002, the French government returned the remains to Uruguay, where they were buried with honours at the National Pantheon. Before the burial, we performed morphological studies as well as extracted samples for DNA analysis. Peru's morphology is coherent with the one of a nomadic warrior: robust body with strong muscular insertions, wounds, and healthy diet based mainly on meat. Here we show that metric and morphological data as well as maternal inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) hypervariable region I (HVRI) and restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs), indicate a close relationship with Pampa-Patagonian Indians, and specially, with prehistoric Natives buried in mounds from eastern Uruguay. This last finding is particularly important to understand Uruguayan prehistory and history, raising the debate about who the mound builders were, and showing continuity between them, historic Charr&x00FA;a Indians, and present populations.

Measuring the impact of European colonization on Native American populations in Southern Brazil and Uruguay: Evidence from mtDNA

“…Another nonexcluding possibility is that the Admixed population carries mtDNA lineages of extinct Charrua groups. For instance, the abundance of haplogroup C1 in current Admixed Pampean populations has been an indication of the Charrua heritage (Marrero et al, 2007a; Sans et al, ).…”

“…We included data from Guarani populations from Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil and Misiones, Argentina (which are neighbor to Southern Brazil/Uruguay) as representatives of current Guarani genetic diversity. We also used one sequence from a historic individual, the legendary Charrua chief Vaimaca Perú (a survivor of the massacre of Salsipuedes , who lived between the years of 1780‐1833; Sans et al, ); for further information about the life of Vaimaca Perú, see Rivet () and Rivet ().…”

“…Another group found in the region was the Chaná, who unlike other tribes subsisted in part through horticulture. Nevertheless, they are also considered to belong to the Macro‐Charrua ethnic group (Becker, ; Klein, ; Marrero, Bravi, et al, ; Sans et al, ). Charrua have been considered an extinct native group, mainly exterminated in post‐Columbian episodes of genocide such as the Matanzas del Salsipuedes y Mataojos , in Uruguay (Sans, ; Sans et al, ).…”

“…Nevertheless, they are also considered to belong to the Macro‐Charrua ethnic group (Becker, ; Klein, ; Marrero, Bravi, et al, ; Sans et al, ). Charrua have been considered an extinct native group, mainly exterminated in post‐Columbian episodes of genocide such as the Matanzas del Salsipuedes y Mataojos , in Uruguay (Sans, ; Sans et al, ). However, some contemporary local populations have been claiming Charruan identity in Argentina (INDEC, ), Uruguay (Mapeo de la Sociedad Civil, , ), and Brazil (IBGE, ), characterizing a “re‐emergence” of Native American identities (Verdesio, ).…”