Over the past two weeks, 30 Mapuche families have reclaimed 7,500 hectares of
ancestral territory near Colan Conhue in southern Argentina. Their land claims
are based on the Argentinean Constitution, which guarantees indigenous people
the right to their identity, culture, and territory. The land is not only valuable
to the Mapuche because of its natural wealth, but its culturally significant
500-year-old cave paintings and a cemetery where ancestors of many Mapuche families
are buried. Tomás Brusain, a cattle rancher who the Mapuche say usurped
the land, has possessed the property for 40 years, but the land has been uninhabited
for five years. The Mapuche have reportedly not encountered any resistance from
Brusain, and hope to gain land title from the provincial land authorities.
