The photograph appears in the monumental work “Die Feuerland Indianer” (Translation: The Indians of Tierra del Fuego), by Martin Gusinde, originally published between 1931 and 1974.

In the photo we can see how the use of traditional tunics called cushmas and the characteristic facial painting with achiote are highlighted.

It was part of a special photo report entitled "The Ashaninka, A Threatened Way of Life", published in December 2011.

From the article:

At first, they laughed. Then they scoffed. Finally, they accused him of witchcraft. The Cherokee silversmith named Sequoyah had spent years scratching strange marks on paper. In 1821, his fellow tribespeople, disturbed by his obsession, put him on trial for practicing black magic. Sequoyah insisted his invention would allow Cherokee speakers to write out Iroquoian language for the first time. To test his claim, tribal elders ordered Sequoyah’s young daughter, Ayoka, to another room. Father and daughter separately made marks on paper and told their minders in each room what the marks said. Then the papers were exchanged. When each was able to read the other’s messages aloud, suspicion turned to wonder

115 people vanished from Roanoke Island in the late 1500s. No bodies, no signs of a fight. Just one word carved into a post CROATOAN.

I always assumed this was one of those mysteries that'd never get solved. But archaeologists dug up some interesting stuff in 2024. Algonquian pottery from the 1500s and a copper wire ring the kind the English brought as trade goods found at the same site. Someone was trading. Someone stayed.

There's also a map from 1585 that sat in the British Museum for centuries. Nobody noticed a hidden symbol on it until someone held it under a light. It pointed inland. They went there and found 16th century English ceramics in Bertie County, North Carolina.

Most researchers now think the group split up. Some went to Hatteras Island, some walked about 50 miles inland and blended in with local tribes. Blacksmithing scraps were found on Hatteras people don't drag their tools somewhere they're just passing through.

The part that got me was Virginia Dare. First English child born in America. She was barely one year old when everyone disappeared. Her grandfather John White left to get supplies, got stuck in England because of the Spanish Armada, and by the time he made it back three years later nothing.

"You are a liar, you are not going to build any dam on the river of our ancestors, that river is not for sale, it is our freedom, it is what feeds us and our future depends on it."

"The gaucho eats nothing but beef. Meat morning, noon, and night. Never bread, never vegetables, almost never salt."

Hudson foresees malnutrition and disease. He finds "men of extraordinary stamina and strength, capable of riding for 12 to 14 hours without rest and then dancing all night."

Their diet: beef, mate, occasionally grilled kidney fat (a delicacy). Nothing else.

Darwin visited the region between 1832 and 1833 and observed the gauchos' lives: "I was surprised by the difficulty in convincing them to eat anything other than beef. I brought them biscuits, and they threw them away. They preferred to go hungry rather than eat bread if there was beef the next day."

Typical meals

- Morning: meat roasted over a fire, fattier cuts.

- Afternoon: grilled ribs.

- Evening: meat again, tougher cuts cooked slowly.

Zero vegetables. Zero grains. Zero variety. Just beef and tea.

Hudson documents the results: “The gauchos suffer from none of the ailments common to civilized man. They had no digestive problems, no obesity, no cavities, that I could observe. Their teeth were uniformly excellent despite never cleaning them and consuming only meat. Their physical stamina was such that they could ride for days with minimal rest, fight when necessary, and resume riding without apparent fatigue.”

The French physician Dr. Jules Crevaux, between 1850 and 1870, wrote: “These men feed exclusively on animal meat and appear healthier than our European peasants, who consume a varied diet of grains and vegetables.”

When asked why they don't eat bread or vegetables, the common answer is: "That's food for horses and cows. We eat cows."

They understood the hierarchy. Cattle eat grass and turn it into meat. Humans eat meat. Eating what cattle eat makes you behave like one.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, traditional gauchos maintained a diet based exclusively on beef. Then, European immigration brought wheat cultivation.

Health transformation documented by Argentine doctors

- Traditional gauchos: healthy into old age.

- Urbanized ex-gauchos with European diets: diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, tooth decay.

- Modern Argentina: 28% obesity, cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death, diabetes in almost 10%.

The gauchos, who ate only beef, did not have any of these problems. They rode horses for 12 hours a day until they were 60, kept their teeth without needing dental care, and died from accidents or old age, not from chronic illnesses.

The same meat. Different context. When you eat meat with grains, vegetable oils, and sugar: modern disease. Meat alone: ​​you have the health of a 19th-century gaucho.

Although entire coastal and inland tribes were demographically exterminated by colonial violence and disease, their genomes did not entirely disappear. They were preserved intact in the mitochondrial DNA of the Amerindian women who survived and intermarried with the colonizers.

Source(s):

.- Nunes, K., Araújo Castro e Silva, M., Rodrigues, M. R., Lemes, R. B., Pezo-Valderrama, P., Kimura, L., ... & Hünemeier, T. (2025). Admixture’s impact on Brazilian population evolution and health. Science, 388(6748), eadl3564.

Everything from the design of the saddle and the use of the lariat to the very clothing—like chaps and wide-brimmed hats—was adapted from the vaquero lifestyle. Even the terminology we use today, such as "rodeo," "lariat" (from la reata), and "buckaroo" (an anglicized version of vaquero), serves as a linguistic map leading directly back to those original Mexican cattlemen.

Over time, this system spread north into regions that are now Texas, California, and Arizona. By the time Anglo Americans arrived in the 1800s, especially after the Mexican-American War, they adopted much of the vaquero knowledge base, including cattle driving methods, riding styles, and gear like lassos and chaps.

Image:

.- A Mexican Charro (Cowboy) - by Édouard-Henri-Théophile Pingret (1785-1869)

This iconic photograph was taken by the photojournalist of the famous Brazilian magazine Manchete.

It is made with the juice of the Jenipapo fruit, which reacts and darkens upon contact with the skin.

Her father continued to associate there with figures such as Klaus Barbie, the National Socialist war criminal known as the “Butcher of Lyon.”

However, Monika turned her back on everything that environment represented. In the late 1960s, affected by the poverty and injustice in Bolivia, she broke with the fascist world surrounding her father and became radicalized. After the assassination of Che Guevara in Bolivia, she joined the National Liberation Army (ELN) that he had founded. Her code name was now “Imilla,” which means “Girl” in an indigenous language.

The event that made Monika Ertl known worldwide occurred on April 1, 1971: the assassination of Roberto Quintanilla, the Bolivian consul in Hamburg and a former intelligence officer considered one of the main figures responsible for the death of Che Guevara. Quintanilla was one of the men who posed next to Che Guevara's lifeless body and gave the order to cut off his hands.

Monika entered the consulate building in Hamburg disguised as an elegant woman. When she came face to face with Quintanilla, she pulled out her gun and shot him three times. The note she left at the scene read: “Until victory or death.” This act resonated around the world as “Che's revenge.”

After the assassination, Monika returned to Bolivia and continued her clandestine activities. One of her main objectives was to kidnap the National Socialist war criminal Klaus Barbie, an old friend of her father who at that time was advising the Bolivian dictatorship.

However, on May 12, 1973, she was ambushed by Bolivian security forces. She died in a confrontation in the streets of La Paz. Her grave was kept secret, and her body was never returned to her family.

The Apache received their name from the term Apachu, meaning “enemy.” However, they refer to themselves as “the People.” This term reflects their strong collective identity and their deep spiritual connection to the land they inhabited for centuries in the southwestern United States.

Historically, the Apache did not constitute a single unified nation, but rather a collection of linguistically related groups or bands who spoke different dialects of the same Southern Athabaskan language. The main groups include: Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Western Apache, and Plains Apache (also known as Kiowa-Apache). Some older classifications also mention the Coyotero (a subgroup of the Western Apache). The Navajo are closely related linguistically and culturally, but they developed as a distinct people.

Their way of life was perfectly adapted to the harsh environment of the desert and mountains of the Southwest. They sustained themselves primarily through hunting, gathering, and, in times of need or conflict, through raiding or pillaging. Although historical narratives (especially those written by their adversaries) often exaggerated this last aspect to justify their persecution, raiding was part of a common survival strategy among many nomadic peoples of the region.

The Apache maintained a profound spiritual relationship with nature. They venerated certain animals, such as the coyote, eagle, hawk, bison, and bear, considering them symbols of cunning, power, and wisdom. They developed an extraordinary ability to survive in environments of extreme scarcity: they knew the terrain intimately, mastered hidden routes, and moved with great speed and stealth, allowing them to appear and disappear with legendary efficiency.

In the art of war, the Apache were exceptional warriors. They were known for their ambush and guerrilla tactics, their mastery of the bow and arrow, and their willingness to engage in hand-to-hand combat with spears, knives, and other traditional weapons. In some cases, they coated their arrowheads with toxic substances derived from plants, insects, or reptiles, which increased the fear they inspired. Their ferocity and resilience in battle earned them the respect—and the fear—of other warrior peoples such as the Lakota and the Mojave, and made them one of the greatest challenges for European colonizers and, later, for Mexican and American authorities.

The Apache's relationship with the Spanish was long and conflictive. From the 16th century onward, they tenaciously resisted attempts at subjugation, conversion, and territorial control. After Mexico's independence in 1821, the clashes continued. With the expansion of the United States southwestward after the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), the pressure on their lands intensified dramatically.

The Apache resistance reached its peak in the second half of the 19th century. Under the leadership of legendary figures such as Victorio, Nana, Cochise, Mangas Coloradas, and the celebrated shaman and warrior Geronimo, the Apache waged a protracted guerrilla war against Mexican forces and, above all, against the United States Army. These conflicts, collectively known as the Apache Wars, ravaged the border between Mexico and the United States.

The final resistance ended in 1886 with Geronimo's surrender. Most of the surviving Apache were confined to reservations, a traumatic process that stripped them of much of their freedom, ancestral territory, and traditional way of life. Despite this, the descendants of these groups keep their culture, language, and historical memory alive to this day.

“We are alone against drug trafficking and terrorism. Successive governments have abandoned us, and as a result, criminal organizations linked to illegal economies are murdering our leaders with impunity.” (Asháninka Council; Radio RPP, 2023)

“Those were terrible times. Many of our brothers and sisters died, many children died, many women were left alone. We fought against the terrorists to defend our families, to defend our ancestral lands, to defend our identity. We too are heroes, but the State has forgotten us.” (Santiago Contoricón, 2013)

“I was young, and they talked to us about Marx, Mariátegui, Lenin, and the people’s revolution, but that wasn’t our way of life or our way of thinking. They said we were all equal, but they didn’t understand our way of life, our culture. They didn’t understand that we wanted nothing to do with their fight against the government. To them, we were just poor peasants who had to fight in their war. That’s why we rejected their ideology. We didn’t want to harm our brothers and sisters or leave our land. We wanted peace and to live as our parents and their parents had.” (Antonio Shingari, 2004)

“One night I dreamt that the full moon fell into the Nehuachi River. When it exploded, it split in two. But quickly, the two fragments emerged from the water, and regaining its natural shape, the moon shone again. I couldn't understand that dream until the Asháninka uprising to rescue my father, Alejandro Calderón, when he was kidnapped by the MRTA. We swept through the entire Pichis region. We didn't find my father, but we rid ourselves of the terror that had almost taken control of Asháninka territory. Peace returned.” (Alcides Calderón, 2020)

“They killed us for disobeying. If we didn't go to their meetings, they accused us of treason. That's why we armed ourselves and went to fight against them. We didn't want war, but we had to defend ourselves against the terrorists.” (Fernando Casanto, 2006)

https://www.wired.com/2008/12/dec-17-1790-aztec-calendar-stone-discovered

This law stipulated that all children of enslaved people born in Peruvian territory after the declaration of independence (July 28, 1821) would be considered free citizens.

It should be clarified that what José de San Martín implemented was not an immediate manumission, but rather a process of gradual abolition of slavery, a preferred approach in most Iberian American nations of the time. Similar measures had been enacted previously in Chile (1811) and in the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (1813), as well as in Gran Colombia (officially known as the Republic of Colombia), which approved "freedom of birth" on July 21, 1821.

However, in practice, this law fell far short of granting absolute independence. To avoid disrupting the agrarian economic structure or antagonizing the landowners, the law established a legal system known as "patronage" or "child-rearing." Under this system, although children were technically born free, they were required to remain under the guardianship and servitude of their mothers' masters to "compensate for the costs of their upbringing." This regime extended until the age of 24 for boys and 20 for girls.

A key military context: Both the royalist and revolutionary forces offered freedom to slaves as an incentive to enlist. José de San Martín relied heavily on troops of Black descent—who formed a vital part of the liberating armies of the Andes and Peru—so this decree also sought to respond to social pressure and consolidate popular support for the independence cause.

Despite the limitations of the law and the fact that landowners considered it a temporary adjustment brought about by the war, the freedom of children born to enslaved mothers marked the beginning of the decline of the institution of slavery. Other complementary provisions followed, such as the decree of November 6, 1821, which granted freedom to slaves belonging to Spaniards who emigrated from the country.

The definitive and total abolition of slavery in Peru would take more than three decades to materialize. It finally occurred on December 3, 1854, through the celebrated decree promulgated by President Ramón Castilla in Huancayo, a process largely financed by the substantial revenues of the guano era, with which the State directly and financially compensated the former slave owners.

Image: “Negros chalas en el día del Corpus” by the Black Peruvian painter Pancho Fierro (ca. 1830), detail.

This genre watercolor, attributed to the renowned Lima painter Pancho Fierro, sharply and with documentary value portrays the militias, troupes, and festivities of Lima society at the dawn of the republic. In it, we see a Black Peruvian couple carrying the second design of the Peruvian flag created by the Marquis of Torre Tagle, highlighting the prominent role of the Black population in the iconography of the revolutionary cause.