Seven ancestors restored to the indigenous community of Punta Querandí were reinterred, according to the traditions of that town, in the sacred sites of La Bellaca, on the border of Dique Luján and Benavídez, reported members of that original people.
It is about the remains of 6 adults and a child, almost a thousand years old, that the Indigenous Community of Punta Querandí claimed since 2009 to the Heritage of the province of Buenos Aires to restore the human remains and fFinally, last March he succeeded, in what was considered the most important massive restitution to be carried out in the district.
The Community announced today in a statement that the reburial took place last Sunday, in which it was experienced as “an act of justice, reparation and a historical event.”
“A procession of vehicles departed from the Punta Canal area in the vicinity of Punta Querandí, headed along the former railway path known as the Vía Muerta and crossed the towns of Dique Luján and Villa La Ñata, in the north of Tigre, always headed for a truck that transported the bodies of the ancestors, “the statement detailed.
The Punta Querandí community began the reburial of indigenous remains that were looted and taken to the INAPLhttps://t.co/7xE9AQV9k8 #Tiger #PuntaQuerandí Community #Indigenous villages #Buenos Aires #Argentina #CommunicationwithIdentity #OriginaryAR pic.twitter.com/btsdU8b5jq
– originario.ar (@originarioAR) September 20, 2021
Once at the two archaeological sites in La Bellaca and La Bellaca 2, the reburial ceremonies were held, which was done in the rain.
Santiago Chara, of the Punta Querandí Council of Elders and authority of the Qom Cacique Ramón Chara de Benavidez Community, He expressed that “the reburial in La Bellaca was very exciting, I am very happy that the ancestors who should never have left that place are returning to earth again.”
“Tears were confused with the rain. It was a day of justice. Our ancestors still continue to communicate with us, in dreams, in acts of nature, that day it rained and then the sun came out,” he stressed Cintia López, chief of the Qompí de Garín Community
He highlighted, in reference to one of the ancestors, a thousand-year-old woman who “was very strong that communion of women of fire carrying this great warrior whose spirit fought to be free and return again to her territory.”
For its part, the coordinator of the National Program for the Identification of Indigenous Human Remains, Fernando Miguel Pepe, expressed to Télam that “each restitution has different steps, they begin with the claim, then the positive resolution of the INAI, later the restitution itself and finally the burial or reburial in the community in desecrated sacred sites such as cases of the Community of Punta Querandí “.
“All this process is part of a public policy of historical reparation to the communities that must inexorably lead to a Community Property Law”, he stressed.
He explained that “we only put a grain of corn from our place in the world, anthropology, in order to alleviate one of the multiple consequences of the genocide suffered at the end of the 19th century. The appropriation of the ancestors of the communities to display them like primitive savages that were dying out due to their own biological weakness, thus hiding the genocide they were suffering. “
More than fifty people participated in the event and at the end of the re-burials they shared an emotional round, among members of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of Tigre and Escobar, communities from other districts, families from neighboring popular neighborhoods, environmentalists and nearby social and political movements to claims.
Reinaldo Roa, of the Council of Elders and member of the Guaraní People, stated in a statement from Punta Querandí that “our mission is to rebuild what has been destroyed” and assured that “the ancestors are returning to be the guardians of the territory so that they do not continue destroying everything.”
