Cuerpos silenciados. El ingreso de restos humanos al Museo Etnográfico entre 1904 y 1916 durante las campañas militares al Gran Chaco argentino

Abstract

In this article we analyze the entry of human remains to the Ethnographic Museum between 1904 and 1916,requested by his director Juan B. Ambrosetti to different persons and institutions. We will focus on those belonging to the remains of natives of the Argentine Gran Chaco, in the context of the military advance on this territory and the consequent dismantling of its ethnic organizations groups. We pointed that members of the army sent ethnographic objects and body remains to the Museum, upon a direct request from Ambrosetti to the Army. In particular we will examine the information about the remains that can could be identified: the indigenous chief Carayá, and Illirí; the latter was murdered being murdered in an ambush and sent directly to the Museum once the flesh of his body had been removed (from the bones). Those cases allow us to concentrate on the nexus between the anthropological science and the military campaigns, framed by the territorial advance of the state at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Keywords

• Human remains
• indigenous chiefs
• campaigns to Gran Chaco
• Juan B. Ambrosetti; Ethnographic Museum.