Walking the beach here in Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, I've found many crude (and not so crude) stone tools of the Charrúa people or their ancestors. The large number of tools gives one the impression that it was a very utilitarian culture, focused on survival and with little or no leisure for art. Perhaps strangely, I have found this to be, at least for me, a troubling question.
For me, art is one of the things that make life worthwhile. In Paraguay and Brazil, the Mbyá Guaraní had (and still have) a mythological epic, recited orally. In the Andean regions, the Inca had a theatrical tradition. Mysterious sculptures are found from Colombia the southern Mexico. The Aztecs had a fine poetic tradition in their Nahuatl language. Maya frescoes are abundant. In North America, the Cherokee people used their writing system to write magical charms and love poetry, and the indigenous peoples of the Northwest carve magnificent totem poles. But what did the Charrúas have?
I am still trying to answer that question. The people are gone (though their genes remain). We know only about twenty words of their language, which was unwritten. They must have had some kind of art. How, otherwise, could they have lived?
I continue to walk the beach every day. I'll let you know what I find, if I find more than you see in the photo above. Perhaps one of these days the Atlantic will throw me a plump fertility goddess. I hope so.
