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Introduction 3 Pigafetta’s account of Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world and Francis Fletcher’s journal of Francis Drake’s 1577–1580 voyages. In 1904, Walter Alexander Raleigh claimed that it was more likely that Shakespeare had found the name “Setebos” in Fletcher’s account (quoted in Mason Vaughan and Vaughan 40–41). In fact, Setebos is the name that Pigafetta gave to the god he thought was worshipped by the Tehuelches, and Fletcher simply reproduced it in his text.6 Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux made of Patagonia the perfect setting for their post-modern textualised journeys. The authors engaged their travel experiences to Patagonia through other texts. All the way through their works, they make strategic use of literary invocations, expanding the visions of vastness which, in part, are echoing the images created in the nineteenth century by travellers who ventured to the region. In spite of the deep transformations Patagonia underwent from the “discovery” of the “Patagonian Giants” onwards, the landscape has somehow remained is “Ariel” by the Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó, published in 1900. Whereas the aerie spirit represents the truth and beauty of Latin America, Caliban embodies the utilitariansim of the US. However, it was Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío who in 1895, with the publication of the newspaper article “El triunfo de Calibán”, first suggested the metaphorical use of Caliban to represent the US as he alluded to the Shakespearean character to criticise New York’s lack of spirituality. In his landmark essay, “Calibán: apuntes sobre la cultura de nuestra América” (1973) Cuban writer Roberto Fernández Retamar inverts the metaphorical use of the characters by suggesting that it is Caliban, not Ariel, who best represents Latin American identity. Whatever the irony contained in the fact that the very recognisable stereotype of the savage native which emerges in The Tempest is chosen to rebel against colonial rule, there is no doubt about the profound permeability of textual boundaries. Latin American writers were adding their voice to the pre-existing textual dialogue between Europe and the Americas, and their use of the Shakespearean characters shows that the trafficking of meanings from the metropolis to its periphery is a process that has appropriative power in multiple directions. 6 More discussion on this issue is to be found in Marina Warner. “The Foul Witch and Her ‘freckled whelp’: Circean Mutations in the New World” (97–113); and John Gillies. “The Figure of the New World in The Tempest” (180–201), both in “The Tempest” and Its Travels. Ed. <strong>Peter</strong> Hulme and William H. Sherman. London: Reaktion Books, 2000.
4 Fernanda Peñaloza the epitome of nothingness, the land of exile, a ghostly scenario where the post-modern traveller can write: “nowhere is a place”.7 The intertextual map outlined above links a wide mixture of narratives and their powerful symbolic investments that are therefore intertwined in an ambivalent and ambiguous process of creating, representing and confronting otherness. Such discursive intersections pertain to the western fascination with Patagonia, which can be dated to 1520, the year of Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation. At the time the Portuguese explorer passed from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the strait that was named after him, it was believed that right at the very “end of the earth” there was a terrifying land, the legendary “Terra Incognita Australis”. In An tonio Pigafetta’s account of the Magellan expedition, the height of the first Tehuelche to meet Europeans is emphasised. With the language of amazement characteristic of the Early Modern period and marking the birth of one of the most enduring myths of the region, Pigafetta describes the Tehuelches as being of gigantic proportions. From then on, the southern region of Chile and Argentina has embodied powerful images that so easily appear to convey the monstrous, the uninviting, the alluring and the unexpected. Conquerors, explorers, adventurers, settlers, exiled, outlaws, scientists, missionaries and all kinds of real and imaginary visitors transformed this vast area of over 1 million square kilometres into an enigmatic territory.8 7 Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux. Patagonia Revisited. Salisbury: Michael Russell, 1985. 13. A long-running scientific enquiry around the rumours of giants in Patagonia discredited the tales of the explorers, but only to some extent. The strong belief that supported the myth for many years was the fifteenth century theory affirming that the closer to the North or the South Poles, the bigger the size of the people who live there. With the Enlightenment many journals fed the myth, but several scientists began to regard the issue with scepticism. Among them was the French natural philosopher, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–1788) who denied the existence of giants by “proving” that animals and plants of the New World were small and degenerate in comparison to European. 8 Whereas Chilean Patagonia extends from part of Los Lagos and the whole of Aysén and Magallanes known as the X, XI and XII regions, respectively, Argentine Patagonia is comprised by five provinces: Río Negro, Neuquén, Chubut, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego. Argentine Patagonia was centrally controlled by the national government
Page 2 and 3: Fernanda Peñaloza Introduction: My
Page 6 and 7: Introduction 5 The land of gigantic
Page 8 and 9: Introduction 7 began to cast their
Page 10 and 11: Introduction 9 trace the prehistory
Page 12 and 13: Introduction 11 of Patagonia are vi
Page 14 and 15: Introduction 13 In order to avoid t
Page 16 and 17: Introduction 15 and Carlos María M
Page 18 and 19: Introduction 17 due to its forced c
Page 20 and 21: Introduction 19 they become politic
Page 22 and 23: Introduction 21 Jason Wilson’s es
Page 24 and 25: Introduction 23 which entails a rew
Page 26: Introduction 25 the first attempt t

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