Mistral and Melfi in the Patagonia

Abstract

The poetess Gabriela Mistral and the essay writer Domingo Melfi write about the complex cultural situation in the Patagonia in the early XX century. The triptic “Paisajes de la Patagonia” included in Desolación (1922) by Gabriela Mistral is a hidden controversy against the migratory policies of the Chilean State which promoted and facilitated the burning of the local flora and native forests, and the exclusion of ethnic minorities to encourage the exploitation of cattle for their wool carried out by European migrants. Mistral relates spatial emptiness to a vulnerable nature of the human condition and the acquisition of violence for its voice. The poet’s stance receives an observation in the travel log “El Hombre y la soledad en las tierras magallanicas” (1940) by Domingo Melfi, who despite sharing Mistral’s stance on the dreadful circumstances in which native people are kept, delineates a counterargument concerning the characteristics the ordinary Chilean has to produce wealth and encourage the development of the Patagonia.