“Tucumans and as Tucumans we are all crossed by the mill, the sugarcane, the harvest”: Nina Alegrete talks with Ana Pedraza about the myth and the truth behind the most well-known legend in the whole province
ana pedraza i interview journalist Nina Allegret, Which after investigation tells us the story of the relative, the myth and the truth behind this story that all Tucumans know.
ana: “Grandparents used to tell us earlier that we used to hear the sound of chains coming to take away some labourer, but well, I don’t know whether it is true or false, for that you are there, you know It is good to know about our history and our myths that make up our Tucumán”.
little girl: “It’s good to know where these fears come from. The family dog is a representation of the devil, a subject of terror and terror. Let’s say it landed with the Spanish. That’s a lot of our Christian idea, good and bad, God. and Satan, to act rightly or wrongly, and nothing in between. Our indigenous peoples in the Americas had a much greater acceptance of what would be good and evil, because they lived side by side in a different way, Because for example, there was talk of Urkupaya, which deals with entities of the lower subtle. Then there was an acceptance that we are all good and we are all bad, that there was neither 100% good nor 100% evil. The figures of the lower Subtle were those that were associated with things like mischief, jokes, acts of jealousy, sensuality, all this was the joke of the uncle or supai, as our indigenous people said. On the other hand, in Christianity we talk about good and evil, And there they appear these figures that are very scary, like the family dog.
This is not exclusive to Tucumán, in fact, there are many stories where there are crops, workers, much economic collection and there is a terrible dog, a demon or a monster, because in thinking of a monster, in this case I have a huge dog, with chains, with red eyes, that eats you and it’s all like a very primitive fear.
ana: “Nina examines our history and our myths, but many of us, our grandparents, our great-grandparents, told us that there were funny owners who made pacts with the devil with the family dog. , and when the harvest was over they gave it to one or some of the workers as a sacrifice for the harvest to go well, that’s what they told me.”
little girl: “That story was told until 1960, which is when the figure of FOTIA (Federación Obrera Tucumana de la Industria del Azúcar) began to exist in Tucumán.”
To come: Listen to me Nina, FOTIA is close to the radio, it’s starting to scare me
little girl: FOTIA killed relative so don’t worry
To come: “Dead already? I bike there and sometimes there are destinations we have to go at dawn, and that’s when I start to get scared. When you pass Alberti or Aguileras, I don’t remember, you pass by a place called el impenetrable, because it’s a place all over mountains, no light and when i go there i start to remember everything my grandfather said, my uncle gave me the family dog and the truth is that those are things that one carries with them, that they told you as a girl, but when you’re in those places you think, what if this The fact that there’s a family dog and he eats me with a bicycle and everything?, because it’s always.”
little girl: “What happens is that it was very firmly established, so there are many factors that led to this myth being established for more than 100 years. Until FOTIA, nobody questioned it, nobody said it didn’t exist. In fact, people said I’ve seen it, how are you arguing with me. At that time, mill owners had so much money that traveling was a common practice, while tourism was still something that existed didn’t. But he traveled. He had contacts with the Russian Tsar, and when he met a dog that the Tsar had, which is a borzoi, it’s like a very hairy greyhound, very long. Villagers at night Imagine walking around the neighborhood when it was only there to light a candle, and you see a black borzoi. So if they tell you, I saw the family dog, and it was definitely a borzoi. It was hung with chains and all that. It was also discovered during those night visits that the borzoi never walked alone, but walked with helpers, it was the retainer of those who had to give it a hand”
To come: “You say it’s just a myth?”
little girl: “It killed you, it killed you, but I don’t know it was Borozzi. Do you know me Great werewolf, Ana? The werewolf is the seventh son of the same man who becomes the werewolf on Friday Night, a version of the werewolf. The legend of the werewolf became popular along with the family dog, so it is as if many people concluded that the son of the family was one”.
To come: “The stories were already mixed.”
little girl: “The stories were mixed up and Tucumán is a province that believes a lot in the devil, ie it believes in God but it believes a lot in the devil. Well, a lot of people with the werewolf started killing seventh male children not the same parents, but the same people they thought they knew. So the President Roque Senz Pena I establish that the seventh son is the president’s godson, so there he becomes a little more pariah”.
To come: “I am the son of the devil, but the godson of the president.”
little girl: “Then the myths begin to intertwine and based on fear, an entire culture based on the devil, the family dog, is put together. This article called “Sacrifice and Cannibalism”. cannibalism because the mill is the one that eats the worker, but beyond the myth of the family member, before labor rights came into existence, the mill ate the worker because of the exhausting work, insecurity, trapiche that All the sugar industry in the north had an element of missing tracks, missing people. Everything is mixed in Trapich, nothing remains. Anyone who has had the opportunity to see a sugar mill knows that it is really terrifying and very impressive to see and hear, it scares you, it makes you a little nervous. And for what sacrifice, because although it is terrifying for employees to learn that their colleagues have disappeared, there is also an unconscious question of knowing that having a lot of money is never a good thing. If the boss is doing well, it is because the mill is doing well, and if the mill is doing well, someone has to be sacrificed. It’s a sacrifice that must be accepted, and it’s an idea that lasted for 100 years, which is why the myth took root so firmly, because it was terrifying but it shouldn’t even be questioned because it was something It was what was going to happen, it has to happen so that we can be okay and the mill can keep working.”
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