O'Higgins spent 5 years as head of state, consolidating the country but angering conservatives who objected to his secularism. After a civil war, the opposition landowners and pro-business politicians, Diego Portales emerged as the power behind a conservative regime, wrote a constitution in 1833 (which lasted until 1925), which created a centralized government and installed Roman Catholicism as the official religion. At the same time silver was found in the Atacama Desert, and California's Gold Rush provided a huge market for Chilean wheat. The landowners became the chief beneficiaries, while laborers and peasants formed a permanent underclass. This division would become one of Chile's great social dilemmas of the 20th century. Chile gained the northern areas of nitrate-rich lands in the far north from Peru and Bolivia after the War of the Pacific (1879-1883).
This week and next, (not just the two days of official Fiestas Patrias), Chileans all seem to be on vacation. School is out, people head for the beaches (though it is definitely not yet summer), there are flags everywhere, lots of drinking, including chicha, an alcoholic drink made from fermented fruit (mostly apples and grapes) and people in costumes are practicing the national dance, the cueca.
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| Girls dress in flouncy floral dresses waving white handkerchiefs, men and boys in black pants, spurs, ponchos, and flat-brimmed sombreros also wave handkerchiefs. The cueca mimics the courtship of the rooster and the hen. There is a rural version and an urban (cueca chara or bravo). Most Chileans know the dance. |
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| Missionary sisters Horrocks and Cheta |
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| Enrique Lamartine, an assistant recorder in the temple, is one of MC's. Elder Poulsen (our senior missionary who just went home), baptized one of his 5 brothers 50 years ago in Chile, and that began a whole wonderful family's membership and service in the church. |
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| Ricale and Henryo and his girlfriend |
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| Hermanas Ojeda and Hoppe are temple workers |
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| Patriarch and Sister Lamartine |
For the video of dancing, singing, click on the album link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DGmFZfRPyAJbAMbi7
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| I'm not sure the cook was enjoying himself, but we appreciated his efforts. |
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| Supreme Court, guardian of Justice and Liberty on left; House of Deputies on the right. |
We look forward to the celebrations this week (military parade and dancing/music in many venues). While some of us play, our Haitian handymen and gardeners (Frantdy and Charles here) are hard at work. I love to speak French with them and the others.
The church has some wonderful humanitarian projects, usually working in conjunction with local organizations, such as refugee support, beds for hospitals, and a large corporation using the state of the art treatment for children with burns. Most people in the city use gas stoves and in the country wood-burning so there are many accidents. Our friends the Blacks
serve as missionaries in these projects.
Across the plaza from the Supreme Court is the fabulous Museo Chileno de Arte Pre-Colombiano, with the basement devoted to peoples and culture of just Chile, beginning about 14,000 years ago when the humans first stepped foot in lands that are now Chile. (Higher floor with artifacts of all of pre-Colombian lands). Chile was never a top priority for explorers or colonizers. The Inca made their way down from Peru as far as Santiago in the mid 15th c., less than 100 years before the Spanish arrived. The native Atacameno and Diaguita cultures had thrived in the northern deserts for centuries, were fairly well-organized farming societies, growing beans, corn, potatoes, coca, using effective irrigation techniques. They kept llama, wove baskets, made and decorated pots, and traded with each other and with peoples in Peru. The Atacamenos mummified all their their dead (equally) by removing the soft organs and filling them with sticks, plants, etc. Most had clay masks. These Chinchorro mummies are at least 2,000 years older (oldest from 7020, anthropologically mummified from 5050 BC) than those of Egypt (about 3000 BC).
Diaguitas buried men with their wives. Many of the artifacts were buried with them.
This is an amazing counting system of cords and knots
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| I have been so impressed with the Mapuche culture, its strength, silver and woven work, its ties to nature. It still prevails in south-central Chile and fights for its rights. |
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https://photos.app.goo.gl/MgvFxFfxtjudVse36
We can learn so much from history. The trick is not to hold onto negative traditions, to seek revenge and restitution, but to keep the best, to move forward with optimism and wisdom, to leave a legacy for future generations. I believe each of us can know eternal truths, and receive inspiration and guidance for ourselves and teach others to also seek the best this wonderful world has to offer. Whether man (some think so) has caused all the problems we face today, or whether God allows some negative things to happen (and there are a lot of them!) so we can learn from them (sometimes disasters bring people together) is perhaps the mystery we will discover someday. I choose to be positive!
Amen to creating new and positive legacies!!! From Elder Cook's recent broadcast from Nauvoo..."The past is like a foreign country... They do things differently there..."
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