G'day. We are Emily Minter and Andrew Longmire. In mid-2007 we packed our motorbike into a crate and sent it from Australia across the seas. Since then we've had a brilliant 'autumn of our lives', chased south by the colour of the leaves in Europe, as well as a taste of the wet season, on the backroads of South East Asia. We have juiced the South American summer for all it's worth, cramming in as many adventures as we could...

Monday, March 24, 2008

Quilmes

With our wood-solid rear end, we had to avoid rough roads, but we couldn't go past the Quilmes ruins.We had wanted to get some idea of pre-conquest civilisations in South America, and the Quilmes people were the first we met.

Sure, we only spent a couple of hours there, poking around the ruins and then asking questions of the traditional owners sitting at the gate. They were picketing a hotel which had been built without consulting them, and to which they would not have consented. They intended that the hotel should remain closed until the results of their court action were known.

We also picked up a pamphlet which explained their situation. I'll give a little summary here, that the story of the Quilmes people become a little better known. To us, as Australians, the story was very familiar - just insert dam, farm, city or whatever in place of hotel.




After resisting first Inca then Spanish invasion for a couple of hundred years, the Quilmes people were deported from their land in the foothills of the Andes in the seventeenth century. Forced to march to Buenos Aires, many died on the way or in the camp in which they were detained. By the early 1800s, the camp was closed and the people was documented as extinct.

Later that century, however, descendents of the deported population made representations to the King of Spain for legal return of their land. his was granted, but the royal decree was not honoured by settler landholders in the Quilmes' lands. The ruins (and the llamas!) were impressive, but so was the apparent determination of the folk to have their land claim honoured.

Reminded us of Australian stories. We told them that, and offered donations and best wishes as we left.

No comments: