History of Latin American Dermatology

ROBERTO RAMPOLDI BESTARDPirú and Tacuabé, who had fought for independence with Artigas and Rivera, Guyunusaand Senaqué, a shaman-doctor.Official History told us that they were the last four Charrúa, but that was not the case:after the slaughter, children and women were distributed among the families of Montevideo,many men fled and many others sought refuge in spots were they could not befound, even on the other side of the border.The entrepreneur François de Curel took them to France for the purpose of showingthem to the King and Scientific Societies. They were presented in public, in an inhumanecircus exhibition; among the famous individuals who came to see the show was Chopin.After a few months Senaqué died, then so did Vaimaca and afterwards Guyunusa wasfelled by tuberculosis. But before dying she gave birth to a son by Tacuabé, who fled withthe child and vanished in France without a trace. Nothing further was heard of them 11-15 .The situation is different in our territory from that of the rest of the Americas, whereIndian communities exist. For over a hundred years already, there are no native Indiansin Uruguay, but their descendants do live here, currently gathered in diverse institutionsfor different purposes. For almost twenty years they have been researching their ancestry,staging conferences and cultural events, recovering symbols and words stashed awayfor a very long time, even singing them. Toward 1991, the first censuses showed 120 descendantfamilies (360 individuals). More recent data show figures of up to half a millionindividuals 16 .The Biological Anthropology studies begun in 1985 by Drs. Mañé Garzón and NoraSans are continuing today in diverse locations of the territory. The research carried outby Dr. Sans in the Department of Tacuarembó show that more than 20% of the genes ofthe population are of Indian origin. Some 59% of this population descends from Indianson the maternal line, which demonstrates that in Uruguay as in Latin America nativewomen mated with Europeans. The data are repeated, albeit somewhat lower, in otherparts of the territory 11 . This research shows that a significant share of American bloodis preserved in our population: we inhabitants of this country aren’t, therefore, only Europeanimmigrants or the descendants of those immigrants 17 .■ The voyages to the to Paranaguazú the Paranaguazú (River Plate) (River Plate)All records written about the indigenous Uruguay date from the period of the conquestand the centuries that followed the latter. The writing of the native peoples beingunknown, to study them it has been necessary to turn to the chronicles of visitors and toarcheological, anthropological and philological research. The narratives often belong toill-informed people, whose interests were removed from ethnography, yet they are, evenso, very valuable.Paranaguazú (“river as broad as the sea”) is what the Indians called the River Plate;the latter name is due to a mistaken interpretation, since it was believed that our territorieswere rich in metals; but the name has lived on through time.Before becoming the feared “navigators’ graveyard,” as is shown by the many shipwreckscaused by the dangerous pampero winds and by the sandbars on its riverbed, theRiver Plate was where illusions were buried. Despite its wide opening it turned out to beimpossible to use it to reach the silver-laden entrails of the Americas, where the legendaryHills of Silver lay, currently Potosí 18 .In 1502, Amerigo Vespucci reached the Paranaguazú and called it the River Jordan19 . In 1516, the expedition of Juan Díaz de Solís launched a series of forays whichSpain and Portugal undertook in tight competition to search for the passage to the Pacificand discover the paths to the lands of treasure. Before Solís, other sailors had arrived;this is demonstrated by the name of Flores Island, on the River Plate, and the map392