An Ethnomaniac's
Bucket of Bile
by
Fernando de Pierris, JD
From The Steel Crown No. 6 - Copyright 1997 NAARS
Francois Lepot's 1995 work, El Rey de Araucania
y Patagonia, presents a frustrating challenge to its reviewer. The book is
chock full of errors, illogical arguments, off-the-cuff pontifications,
inconsistencies and internal contradictions. Correcting all these mistakes
would require another book, twice as long as Lepot's
And while the substance of
the book is a messy, half-baked concoctions of ill-considered and hasty claims,
the spirit of this book is ungentlemanly, unsavory, and unsettling. Lepot
seems driven by blind national chauvinism and unfettered contempt for the
autochthonic people of the Americas.
It might be possible to
endure Lepot's bad scholarship and bad humor if he at least offered the reader good style and
beautiful language. But it seems the only consistency in this book is its
consistent badness. Lepot, an Argentine journalist
writing for the Buenos Aires Clarin, serves up an
artless story, wielding his pen with the delicacy and accuracy of a chain saw
on steroids.
So how does one review a
book written with a vitriolic pen? The best we can do is offer a few
illustrations - passing snap shots -- of the methods and madness of the author.
I beg the readers' pardon for the fragmented nature of what follows. But
putting order and symmetry into the work of Lepot is
entirely beyond my ability.
In his account of Orelie-Antoine's first journey to Chile, we learn from Lepot that the future king took the recently completed
train line of the Panama Railroad Company to cross the isthmus of Panama from
the Caribbean port of Colon to the Pacific port of Panama.
Lepot then reminds us that the railroad
project "cost the lives of thousands of workers, the majority Chinese, and
not exactly volunteers."
This passing comment is
typical of Lepot. Why would Lepot
imply that the Panama Railroad was built with slave labor?
It is a dubious claim at best, but even if it were true, it has no apparent
bearing on the Kingdom of Araucania & Patagonia. Is
Lepot suggesting that Orelie-Antoine
was morally tainted by riding on a railroad built by slaves?
The Panama Railroad was
built by a consortium of companies from the United States. The putative use of
slave labor is, therefore, an insult against Lepot's looming neighbor to the
north. With one exception, Lepot refers to citizens
of the United States with the pejorative "Yankee." What place Lepot's distaste for the citizens of the United States has
in a book about the Mapuche's kingdom is not clear.
Lepot claims to write "in honor of the truth and the respect for the sovereignty and
dignity of Chile and Argentina and especially of the Indians" - a curious
claim for a book written with no other purpose than to negate the rights of the
Mapuche and the kingdom they founded in 1860.
Lepot claims to be a friend of the
Indians, yet his description of the celebration surrounding the election of Orelie-Antoine as King of Araucania
is unabashedly racist. He writes: "Orelie got
himself crowned by the Tehuelches, Puelches and other Indian gentleman, fiery alcoholics,
eaters of raw meat. . . after four days of drunkenness, sacrificing horses,
ritual dancing, etc."
Aside from his insulting
description of the Indians, this commentary is clearly intended to suggest that
Orelie-Antoine hoodwinked the poor, benighted
Indians. Jose Bengoa's account, on the other hand, of
the election of Orelie-Antoine, based on first-hand
reports, reveals very sober and serious deliberations by the Indian leaders.
It is clear that the
Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia represents for Lepot an affront to the dignity of Chile and Argentina, and
a threat to their sovereignty and claim to the territory they took from the Mapuche.
The visit of Prince
Philippe to Chile and Argentina in 1989 was an indignity that Lepot could scarcely endure. Lepot
asks: "Can we admit, legally or morally, that in the name of the Araucanian nation someone can sign his name as 'Prince
Philippe of Araucania and Patagonia?' Have we
forgotten that the Assembly of 1813 abolished all titles of nobility, a measure
that was ratified by Article XVI of the Constitution of 1853, five years before
the arrival of Orelie-Antoine in America?"
What Lepot
fails to see, however, is that the Assembly of 1813 has nothing to do with
Prince Philippe's title. The decisions of the Assembly have force within
Argentina, but neither Araucania nor Patagonia were
within the jurisdiction of Argentina in 1813 or 1853. The southern limit of
Argentina in 1853 was the Rio Negro and Argentina's sovereignty does not extend
to the rest of the world.
Lepot asks what would happen if an
Argentine citizen arrived in France with a passport indicating the bearer to be
the King of France. The question isn't exactly right -- a proper parallel would
be an Argentinean who arrives in Spain with a passport indicating he is the
King of the Basques. The reaction of the Spanish government to such a visitor
likely would be in proportion to the current level of Basque discontent with
Spanish rule and Spanish embarrassment with Franco's treatment of the Basque.
Lepot's first salvo against
Prince Philippe was fired in 1989 before and during the Prince's visit to Chile
and Argentina through the publication of libelous articles in the Sunday
supplement to Clarin. The Prince considered legal action, but decided that it
wasn't worth the trouble. Lepot, using soccer terminology, declared himself
"invicto" -- undefeated.
Prince Philippe's visit to
Argentina and Chile was sponsored by the Comite Exterior Mapuche (CEM), a
Mapuche rights organization in Bristol, England. The group is now known as the
Mapuche International Link. Lepot finds this sponsorship suspect and makes a
far-fetched and paranoid attempt to tie the matter to the Falkland Islands
dispute. Somehow the hand of Margaret Thatcher was behind the CEM sponsorship
of Prince Philippe's visit. Or, at least, in Lepot's mind.
Lepot repeats the common,
but inaccurate, argument that because the Mapuche language did not originally
have a word for "king," they couldn't have intended to elect
Orelie-Antoine to be their king and to organize Mapuche territories as a
kingdom.
This theory is odd, given
the fact that the Mapuche dealt with representatives of the king of Spain for
more than three centuries before Orelie-Antoine arrived. To say that the
Mapuche didn't know what a king was because the word for king was not native to
the Mapuche language is roughly like saying that the Swiss don't know what
democracy is because "democracy" is a Greek word.
After having stripped the
Mapuche of the ability to understand what a king is, Lepot goes on to contradict
himself in his description of the trial of Orelie-Antoine. He writes:
"Months later, at the trial of Orelie-Antoine, a mestizo who was his
interpreter, testified that the Indians would shout 'long live the king!' each
time they met." Perhaps Lepot imagines that the "fiery
alcoholics" were just babbling words they didn't understand.
Lepot puts his foot into
his mouth when he tries to undercut the description of the festivities
surrounding the election of Orelie-Antoine as King of the Mapuche. There are a
number of accounts of this celebration from a number of sources. Prince
Philippe reviews some of the standard accounts in his Histoire du Royaume
d'Araucanie.
Hoping to denigrate Prince
Philippe's book, Lepot writes: "The description of the celebration by this
'historian' and the other panegyrics are obviously inventions, for they do not
go into fundamental details of Mapuche celebrations, such as the horse game of
chueca."
Lepot seems to not know
that chueca, a traditional Mapuche game similar to field hockey, is played on
foot, not horseback. Perhaps Lepot was confusing chueca with polo.
Lepot's version of the
events surrounding the arrest, trial, imprisonment and exile of King
Orelie-Antoine are mostly a gloss on Braun Menendez's scholarly account of
those events. But when Braun Menendez's well-regarded account does not suit
Lepot's purpose, he simply makes up his own version of the facts. Lepot, for
example, describes Juan Bautista Rosales, the man who turned Orelie-Antoine
over to Chilean authorities, as Orelie-Antoine's servant, while all other
accounts have Rosales as a common spy in the hire of Colonel Saavedra.
At Orelie-Antoine's trial,
it was revealed that Rosales was a Second Corporal of the Civil Squadron at
Nacimiento. Lepot chooses to overlook this well-known matter of public record
for transparent reasons: if Rosales is just a humble servant, loyal to Chile,
then his betrayal of Orelie-Antoine looks like a heroic, patriotic act. If
Rosales is a military spy, then the arrest of Orelie-Antoine is just another
chapter in the history of Chilean conquest.
Lepot leads the reader to
believe that Orelie-Antoine was committed to an insane asylum in Santiago
because he was truly mad. This is a disingenuous attempt to ignore the facts,
recognized by other authors such as Braun Menendez, that the commitment of
Orelie-Antoine to the asylum was little more than a judicial face-saving
measure for the government of Chile which recognized it had no case against the
King of Araucania and Patagonia.
At the trial, one set of
doctors testified that Orelie-Antoine was in full command of his faculties. So
the court brought in another set of doctors who were more congenial to the
court's mood. The King was declared non compus mentis and ordered to the asylum
in Santiago with the proviso "that members of his family or consular
representative could take him out at any time." In the end, Orelie-Antoine
never set foot in the asylum.
Lepot's unorthodox
scholarship is evident in his bibliography. He lists 82 authors and more than
100 works, yet missing from his reading list are many important scholars, such
as Victor Domingo Silva, Ricardo Keun and Jose Bengoa.
While ignoring important
authors, Lepot spends time with some curious sources. He cites, for example, Carlos
Schlaen's 1991 work, Orellie. La viva imagen del rey de la Patagonia, which is
a collection of cartoons!
And Lepot does not seem to
understand the nature of some of the works he cites. He writes, for example:
"30,000 colonials and 200,000 Araucanians died in the conflict. These
figures are given by the well-known Chilean historian Eduardo Labarca in his
recent book, Butamalon."
I am acquainted with Mr.
Labarca, a reader of The Steel Crown, who is a Chilean novelist living in
Austria. I sent him an e-mail message, telling him what Lepot had written and
asking for the source of his figures. Within one hour he replied:
Dear
Fernando:
Thank you for informing me
of an issue of which I was not aware. El Butamalon is a novel and not a book
about history or statistics. Consequently, our friend Lepot should find himself
some credible sources. The characters in my novel argue, get upset, lie, invent
things and say anything they want and I cannot control them. I do not remember
any one of them mentioning the number you said (200,000 dead Mapuche) and
should this be the case, don't ask me. It's not for nothing that my book end
with the standard disclaimer that the characters and events in the book are
pure fiction.
Labarca, who does not claim
to be an historian, has written a work of fiction, making no historical
pretensions, reaching for deeper human truths. Lepot, on the other hand, has
written a shoddy work of fiction, that he masquerades as history.
In their works on the
Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia, several well-regarded authors, such as
Silva, Braun Menendez, de la Branniere, Galatoire and Magne mention Pietro
Tappa, Orelie-Antoine's Swiss secretary during the King's third expedition. Lepot
denies Tappa existed and insists that these authors have invented him.
Lepot's denial is so
bizarre that it is difficult to analyze. Tappa's role in the drama of
Orelie-Antoine is well-known. In the next issue of The Steel Crown, I will
reproduce and translate legal documents dated 1875 from Angol and Los Angeles in
Chile that prove Tappa was a flesh and blood character and that he traveled
with Orelie-Antoine. We have his own signature to prove it!
Lepot's book is so full of
blunders that when he isn't dunning his readers with unsubstantiated opinions
or overlooking well-known matters of public record, he seems to be writing
while asleep. One such blunder is when Lepot refers to Prince Philippe as
"Philippe Boiry de Castro y Tosi." Prince Philippe's was born
Philippe Paul Alexandre Henry Boiry. Lepot confuses the Prince with Dr.
Norberto de Castro y Tosi, the Costa Rican scholar - and UNESCO delegate for
that country -- who wrote extensively about the Kingdom of Araucania and
Patagonia.
Lepot accuses Prince
Philippe of selling noble titles and having what he calls the fetish of the
particule. Anyone with a surname preceded with the particule "de" is
suspect in his view for he sees this as an attempt to pass as a member of the
nobility. He lashes out at the French government of 1988, headed by Michel
Rocard, "which had 16 particules in his group, and the government of
Edouard Balladur had 30, some of them questionable." Not even the
venerable French Prime Minister, Valerie Giscard d'Staing is spared Lepot's
criticism.
It is not clear what this
discussion has to do with the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia or with the
right of the Mapuche people, as a sovereign nation, to organize themselves in
any political fashion they choose. It is clear, however, that this discussion
reveals the psychological root of Mr. Lepot's complaints against the Royal
House of Araucania: simple plebian resentment combined with chauvinistic
nationalism.
While Lepot accuses Prince
Philippe of selling titles, the Prince can at least take consolation from that
fact he is in good company. Elizabeth II, Queen of England is similarly
accused. He writes: "Sir Clive Sinclair bought his lordship for £35,000,
George Audley paid £150,00 for the same. Asil Nadir, the Cypriot millionaire
was defrauded because he paid £500,000 for a title he never received."
Lepot offers this peculiar
argument for Chile's right to Araucania: "Chile had founded the city of
Punta Arenas in 1847, 2,000 kilometers south of the Bio-Bio, 21 years before
the arrival of de Tounens." He then claims that because Chile controlled
the lands north of the Bio-Bio and had established Punta Arenas, which lies far
south of the Bio-Bio, it was entitled to claim the lands in between.
The equivalent argument in
North America would be that because the USA controls the State of Alaska and
also controls the State of Washington, that it therefore should own British
Columbia, which lies between the two. But in addition to the flawed logic,
Lepot also misstates the nature of the settlement at Punta Arenas. Today,
Chile's southernmost city is dominated by its naval base. But when it was
established, it was a penal colony. Punta Arenas was chosen precisely because
it was as far away as possible from civilized Chileans who lived north of the
Bio-Bio.
But even while he argues
for the right of Chile to hold Araucania, he admits that "the indigenous
people had - and have - legitimate claims to the land they lost in the name of
civilization." According to Lepot, "this is another story awaiting
justice," and that justice can only be delivered by the ones having
committed the crime - Chile and Argentina - not by the Kingdom of Araucania and
Patagonia.
Another irrelevancy and
contradiction that Lepot offers is his claim that "had Araucania and
Patagonia been colonized by a European power, their fate would have been much
worse, as history shows all over the world." Thus he does admit that these
territories were colonized by Chile and Argen-tina. And I have to wonder what
Lepot considers himself, if not a European. Additionally, one Frenchman,
Orelie-Antoine de Tounens, is not a "European power," but rather a
sympathetic visionary who was welcomed and protected by the Mapuche. Orelie-Antoine's
style of "colonizing" was precisely opposite of that exercised by all
others who came to the Americas.
If Lepot's scholarship,
based as it is on novels, books of cartoons and his private fantasies, is
enough to make any reader skeptical of Lepot's historical analysis, his choice
of Mapuche confidants and informers should make the reader wary of his analysis
of the current relation between the Mapuche and the Royal House of Araucania.
During Prince Philippe's
1989 visit to Chile and Argentina, Lonko Kilapan spoke out against the Prince
and against the Royal House of Araucania. Lepot latches on to Lonko Kilapan and
holds him up as the true representative of Mapuche opinion regarding Prince
Philippe, demonstrating that the Mapuche reject the Kingdom of Araucania and
Patagonia.
Kilapan was at the time a
leader of the Chilean Indigenous Confederation (CICH) and a descendant of the
famous Cacique Kilapan, who was Orelie-Antoine's greatest ally. Lepot only says
that Cacique Kilapan supported Orelie-Antoine, "according to legend,"
implying that perhaps such support did not exist.
It is not surprising that
Lepot places such an emphasis on the opinions of Lonko Kilapan, for this man is
nearly as fine an author as Lepot.
One of Kilapan's works is
O'Higgins was an Araucanian - 17 Ways to Prove It. This curious book tries to
prove that Chile's liberator and first president was not, as everyone else
seems to think, the son of an Irish immigrant, but rather a Mapuche Indian. One
of the proofs offered are that O'Higgins like Mapuche dancing, therefore he was
Mapuche.
In another interesting
work, The Greek Origin of the Araucanians, Kilapan presents the astounding
thesis that the Mapuche are descendants of Greek sailors and that they
maintained telepathic communications with the European homeland for hundreds of
years after being stranded.
In 1982, Lonko Kilapan
wrote to Prince Philippe, sending him copies of O'Higgins was an Araucanian -
17 Ways to Prove It and The Greek Origin of the Araucanians to the Prince. In
his letter he wrote:
Monsieur
Philippe A. Boiry,
Excuse my French, which I
learned from old, wise and venerable people. I did not study in Chilean
schools. I learned French from my family, who learned it from my
great-grandfather, Toqui Kilapan, who learned it from Orelie-Antoine.
Through the two books I am
sending you, I want you to know that I am the President of the Chilean Indigenous
Federation, the Secretary of the Academy of the Araucanian Language and an
historian of my race. As a result of my first book, I was admitted to the
Chilean Scientific Society, for the second I received the O'Higgins Prize for
Literature.
I must publish 14 more
books on the history of my race, including one about Orelie-Antoine, the King
of Araucania.
Orelie was a friend of the
Araucanians, wise man, and a great visionary with a profound knowledge of the
geography, history and politics of Chile and South America. Orelie learned
Spanish and Mapudungun.
In spite of not attending
Chilean school, I became a member of the Writer's Association of Chile, the
Chilean Historic Institute and the Society of Friends of the Chilean Cultural
Patrimony.
I met the French Cultural
Attaché of the French Embassy at an art exposition. I am sending this letter
with him.
Patagonia was a large
territory with savage tribes and small groups that lived by hunting. Orelie
made an alliance with them and was proclaimed King of Patagonia. On the north,
the limit of Patagonia was the Diamante River until it reaches the Quinto
River, and the road from Mendoza to Buenos Aires. To the west, the border was
the Yekmonchi, or Araucanian State.
Therefore Orelie sent an
official communiqué to the President of Chile and the Toqui Kilapan informing
them that Araucania was now an independent state.
In those days, Toqui
Kilapan and Orelie were friends. He wanted an alliance treaty where the
Araucanians would give their territories to France. The Pikunches between the
Maule and Bio-Bio Rivers, the Huiliches between the Tolten River and the Island
of Chiloe, and the Puelches to the east on what is now Argentine territory (see
page 22 of my book O'Higgins was an Araucanian). France would defend the
Araucanian territory between the Bio-Bio River and the Tolten River.
The Araucanians have a
history of more than 10,000 years and a great civilization which we have kept
secret. It was not by chance that we defeated the Incan army, the Spanish army
and the Chilean army, with which we signed a treaty.
The Araucanians have a
perfect grammar, numbers which include zero, arrows and a mastery of
parapsychology.
Have you read Ercilla's La
Araucana or Cautiverio Feliz by Pineda y Bascunan?
Our language is like Greek
and Latin. We have seven vowels, just like French.
I believe we must establish
an Araucanian Museum in Paris, and also a library. In Chile, the Araucanian
Museum should have a French room and a room for Orelie-Antoine.
I invite you to visit me. Do
not talk about these things yet, don't tell El Mercurio or Mr. Lafourcade, the
greatest enemies of Araucania. There will be publicity in due time.
Your friend, L. Kilapan.
In a subsequent letter, he
thanks Prince Philippe for his interest in the Mapuche and says that "it
is your duty to do as the Prince of Araucania." He asks the Prince for
pencils, books and money for Audilio Quiment, a teacher who does not get paid
to work. He asks the Prince to keep everything secret and to correspond with
him through an intermediary in Buenos Aires and to address the letters to
Haydee Perez Gonzales. After a series of requests and mentions of the problems
of the Mapuche, he closes the letter by saying that "the time will come
when the Confederation of Indigenous" people will come to meet with you
personally. He signs the letter, "your brother."
It is this Lonko Kilapan
who cried "Prince Philippe go home!" Whatever Kilapan's motivations
in denouncing Prince Philippe, it seems clear from his letters and books that
Kilapan's opinions cannot be taken seriously.
In addition to the fact
that Lepot chose a dubious character to represent the sentiment of all Mapuche,
he pointedly and dishonestly overlooks the fact that dozens and dozens of
Mapuche, Chilean and Argentinean leaders welcomed Prince Philippe with
courtesy, respect and interest during his 1989 visit. Lonko Kilapan is the
exception, rather than the rule.
The Royal House of
Araucania has a problematic origin and history - even as an ardent supporter of
the kingdom and the claims of Prince Philippe d'Araucanie, it is easy for me to
admit this fact. Orelie-Antoine's control of his kingdom was tenuous, at best. The
succession to the throne has been atypical and plagued by a lack of natural
heirs. The kingdom, which has always had its detractors and enemies, may exist
de jure, but has had a slim existence de facto.
But in spite of these
chinks in the Royal House of Araucania's armor, it clearly survives Lepot's
onslaught. And it survives for the simple reason that Lepot's work is a
laughable, unscholarly, undisciplined and infantile tirade.
I have to imagine that this
book is an embarrassment to those who oppose the claims of the Royal House of Araucania.
It would be the kiss of death to be well-regarded by Lepot.
It might be possible to
make a case against the claims of the Royal House of Araucania, but if Lepot's
work is any indication of the level of culture and scholarship we can expect
from Prince Philippe's detractors, then we can expect His Royal Highness to
remain "invicto" for a long time.
One final comment is in
order: Francois Lepot is a pseudonym. This small fact is very telling. The man
hiding behind the mask is Enrique Oliva. One has to wonder about an author who
presents a work as a serious scholarly undertaking and then signs a pseudonym. Perhaps
Mr. Oliva has enough sense to be embarrassed by his own work.
|
|
Fernando
de Pierris, JD, was born in Nueva Imperial, Chile in 1939. While growing up in the
heart of Araucania, he attended the Temuco English School and the Instituto San
Jose. He received his BA degree from Hampton University and his JD degree
from North Carolina Central University. He is a retired U. S. Army colonel
and a lawyer. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, Renata. |
North American Araucanian Royalist Society