Global communications allow people from all parts of the globe get in touch and know about other cultures. That could be one of the reasons why many people, mainly adolescents, have incorporated foreign trends and cultural patterns, such as those from the Unites States or Europe, putting aside their own. "Generally," writes Stephen Bochner (1973), "the cultural identity of a society is defined by its majority group, and this group is usually quite distinguishable from the minority sub-groups with whom they share the physical environment and the territory that they inhabit." Brochner’s concept of Cultural Identity is extremely useful because it depicts the difficult problems of the forbidden or unknown Native cultures. For Stuart Hall (1973), culture is not something to simply appreciate or study, but a "critical site of social action and intervention, where power relations are both established and potentially unsettled”. Hall’s words reflect what I consider an important point about giving value to legends and customs from the native Argentinian people. Teachers can consider those as useful materials to help students develop consciousness about the importance of their own roots.
The legend of Amancay Flower narrates the story of Amancay, a young brave lady who is in love with the Tribe Leader’s son, Quintral. Due to the fact that she does not belong to a high level in the tribe, their love story is forbidden. Amancay and Quintral start a secret love affair until the young man becomes ill. The illness is the opening point for adventure in the story because from then onwards the reader can appreciate Amancay’s heroic love. She gives her own life in order to find a cure for Quintral sickness. In return, as an offering out of respect for Amancay’s selfless love, the Gods create a yellow flower. This legend from the Vuriloche aborigines, which involves forbidden love and adventure, could be an important tool to promote general knowledge and customs from native Argentinean people. As a way to encourage teachers to use legends in the classroom, this paper proposes Amancay legend as a valuable and interesting content to work with students at secondary schools regarding Cultural Identity concerns.
When discussing about identity and cultural difference, Stanley Hall’s explanation may be useful. Hall (1997) proposes:
“A culture produces ‘shared meanings’. This sharing of meanings generates and reinforces the notion of cultural difference. To say that two people belong to the same culture is to say that they interpret the world in roughly the same ways and can express themselves, their thoughts and feelings about the world, in ways which will be understood by each other”.
The vision about the world Vuriloche tribe used to have may be different to the one our students have. Thus through the Legend of Amancay flower an analysis about some interesting points can be proposed to develop comprehension about the diversity of native Argentinian people. Costumes and believes of the aborigines tribe could be taught with the narrative of this legend. The existence of a wise person in the tribe called “Machi” or the fact that Amancay prays to many Gods instead to only one God might be useful to work with the belief and worship native people used to hold. A clear example within the story reads “Amancay in desperation to save her lover, fled to the tribe’s healer, Machi”.
H. Douglas Brown (2007) states
“The task of the reader is to interpret language that was written in some other place at some other time with only the written words themselves as contextual clues. Readers can’t confront an author and say, “Now, what exactly did you mean by that?” Nor can they transport themselves back through a time machine to “see” the surrounding context, as we can in face-to-face conversations.”
Having in mind Douglas Brown words, teachers may find interesting the fact that The Legend of Amancay’s flower could be an attractive story to work with since the fantasy may possibly be useful to explain reality helping students contextualise the narrative in time and place. As this legend is situated in the Patagonian region of Argentina, some well-known places such as “Bariloche” or “Cerro Tronador” are mentioned. That may clearly help students to contextualise the place where the tribe of Amancay used to live. Although students haven’t been to Bariloche, the fact that they can recognise that name and have an idea of the location possibly will make them experience the story closer to their culture. Even students from Bariloche, who share the physical environment and the territory that Vuriloche tribe inhabited, do not share the same culture. This tells us that it is important to make good use of the advantage of reading stories that are placed in the National territory for the reason that they allow readers to appreciate the story and feel it as their own since the places do not seem so far away like Greece or a place in the United States may sound.
Although there are many debates about Native peoples, it is still heard that aborigines are the “remaining” of ancient societies and sometimes they are regarded as “inferior” or even as “ignorant” people. The Argentinian Ministry of Education states (2010) that
“Assumptions presenting Native people as incomplete and imperfect societies are depicted in phrases like “poor minorities”, “vulnerable groups”, “marginalized groups” or “underdeveloped segments of society”. The problem with social categories is that the rights of these people are based on them. And what is more, they give authority and determination to the design of politics”.
An individual’s consciousness and sense of identity is formed in dialogue with others and with the discourses constituting the society and culture s/he inhabits (Smith, 1988 and Levine, 1992). In western cultures, adolescence is the period when a person is immerse in his/ her personal identity quest. We, teachers, can help our students to know about their own roots. Letting them familiarise with the native tribes, that inhabited and inhabit the Argentinian territory, may help students construct their identity based on the origins of the roots of our own country. They can embrace and respect those origins. As we also have the opportunity to work with foreign legends, stories, belief, and trends some teachers make use of them all the time, and in a way they show themselves loyal to those foreign cultures. In this case a significant risk is run. Students assume what comes from other countries, especially the United States or Europe, is better and what comes from native people is worse.
Engaging students from the romantic and adventurous points of view of the legend of Amancay flower, teachers could plan interesting lessons, units or projects to work with the story in the classroom. The reconstruction of the native Argentinian people’s history is in current debate. This debate is based on the necessity to get in touch and to appreciate native cultures. In the last years there have been many critics to different approaches that addressed these cultures directly with discrimination and prejudice. Nowadays there seems to be a tendency to work in the development of respect towards Native Argentinean peoples. The Argentinean National State, investigators, historians and teachers seems to be more interested in getting in touch and knowing about aborigine cultures. This debate may be useful to carry out further research in order to give stronger support to the suggestion of working with aborigine legends in the Argentinean classrooms. Counting with information gather from personal experience would be useful for teachers to account for their opinions when facing debate about the use of legends in the classroom regarding culture identity.
Appendix I
Leyenda aborigen: La flor de Amancay
A menudo, las leyendas brindan una versión imaginativa y dramática del origen de ciertos elementos naturales: ríos, montañas o —como en este caso— flores. Este relato, proveniente de la región patagónica, narra la heroica y triste historia de la joven Amancay, que sacrifica su vida para salvar la de su amado Quintral.
“Quien da una flor de amancay está ofrendando su corazón”, decían los indios vuriloches. Y a quien preguntara el porqué de esa creencia le contaban esta leyenda:
La tribu vivía cerca de Ten-Ten Mahuida, que hoy se conoce como cerro Tronador.
En aquel entonces, el hijo del cacique era un joven llamado Quintral. No había muchacha en la región que no suspirara al mencionar sus actos de valentía, su físico vigoroso, su voz seductora. Pero a Quintral no le interesaban los halagos femeninos. Él amaba a una joven humilde llamada Amancay, aunque estaba convencido de que su padre jamás lo dejaría desposarla. Lo que el joven guerrero no imaginaba, es que Amancay también sentía por él un profundo amor, y no se animaba a decirlo porque pensaba que su pobreza la hacía indigna de un príncipe. Tanto amor inconfesado encontraría pronto una dura prueba.
Sin aviso, se declaró en la tribu una epidemia de fiebre. Quienes caían víctimas de la enfermedad deliraban hasta la muerte, y nadie sabía cómo curarla. Los que permanecían sanos pensaban que se trataba de malos espíritus y comenzaron a alejarse de la aldea.
En pocos días, Quintral también cayó. El cacique, que velaba junto a su hijo despreciando el peligro del contagio, lo escuchó murmurar, en pleno delirio, un nombre: “Amancay…”
No le llevó mucho averiguar quién era, y saber del amor secreto que sentían el uno por el otro.
Decidido a buscar para su hijo cualquier cosa que le devolviera la salud, mandó a sus guerreros a traerla.
Pero Amancay ya no estaba en su casa. Se hallaba trepando penosamente el Ten-Ten Mahuida. La “machi”, la hechicera del pueblo, le había dicho que el único remedio capaz de bajar esa fiebre era una infusión, hecha con una flor amarilla que crecía solitaria en lo alto de la montaña.
Lastimándose manos y rodillas, Amancay alcanzó finalmente la cumbre y vio la flor abierta al sol.
Apenas la arrancó, una sombra enorme cubrió el suelo. Levantó los ojos y vio un gran cóndor, que se posó junto a ella levantando un viento terrible a cada golpe de sus alas. El ave le dijo con voz atronadora que él era el guardián de las cumbres y la acusó de tomar algo que pertenecía a los dioses.
Aterrada, Amancay le contó llorando lo que sucedía abajo, en el valle, donde Quintral agonizaba, y que aquella flor era su única esperanza.
El cóndor le dijo que la cura llegaría a Quintral sólo si ella accedía a entregar su propio corazón. Amancay aceptó, porque no imaginaba un mundo donde Quintral no estuviera, y si tenía que entregar su vida a cambio, no le importaba. Dejó que el cóndor la envolviera en sus alas y le arrancara el corazón con el pico. En un suspiro donde se le iba la vida, Amancay pronunció el nombre de Quintral.
El cóndor tomó el corazón y la flor entre sus garras y se elevó, volando sobre el viento hasta la morada de los dioses. Mientras volaba, la sangre que goteaba no sólo manchó la flor sino que cayó sobre los valles y montañas. El cóndor pidió a los dioses la cura de aquella enfermedad, y que los hombres siempre recordaran el sacrificio de Amancay.
La “machi”, que aguardaba en su choza el regreso de la joven, mirando cada tanto hacia la montaña, supo que algo milagroso había pasado. Porque en un momento, las cumbres y valles se cubrieron de pequeñas flores amarillas moteadas de rojo. En cada gota de sangre de Amancay nacía una pequeña planta, la misma que antes crecía solamente en la cumbre del Ten-Ten.
La hechicera salió al exterior, mirando con ojos asombrados el vuelo de un cóndor gigantesco, allá en lo alto. Y supo que los vuriloches tenían su cura. Por eso, cuando los guerreros llegaron en busca de Amancay, les entregó un puñado de flores como única respuesta.
References
- Bochner, S. (1973) "The Mediating Man and Cultural Diversity." Topics in Culture Learning Series, Vol. 1, 23-37.
- Brown, H. D (2007) “Teaching by Principles, An interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, Third Edition” Pearson Education, Inc
- Hall, S. (1973). Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse. Birmingham: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, p. 1
- Hall, S. (1997) “Introduction, “in Representation: cultural representations and
- Signifying practices,” S. Hall, Ed. London: SAGE in association with
- The Open University, pp. 1-11.
- Hall, S. (1998) Culture and Power," Interview, Radical Philosophy, November/December 1998.
- Levine (1992) McCullum, Robyn (1999) "Introduction: Subjectivity, humanism and children's literature." Ideologies of Identity in Adolescents Fiction: The dialogic construction of subjectivity. Nueva York: Garland
- Smith (1988) McCullum, Robyn (1999) "Introduction: Subjectivity, humanism and children's literature." Ideologies of Identity in Adolescents Fiction: The dialogic construction of subjectivity. Nueva York: Garland
- Ministerio de Educación. Presidencia de la Nación Argentina
- http://portal.educacion.gov.ar/ Accessed 25/10/2013
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