The Awakening of Latin America

by Ernesto Che Guevara

  •Need for study.

  •Need for exchanges with medical journals.

  Works Consulted (1954-56) for The Role of the Doctor in Latin America

  Adams, Richard N., Un análisis de las creencias y prácticas médicas en un pueblo indígena de Guatemala (Con sugerencias relacionadas con la práctica de medicina en el área maya) [An Analysis of Medical Practices and Beliefs in an Indigenous Village in Guatemala (With Suggestions Related to the Practice of Medicine in the Mayan Area)]. Special publication 17 of the National Indigenous Institute, Guatemala: Editorial del Ministerio de Educación Pública, 1952. (C.).

  Constitución (ley fundamental) de la U.R.S.S. [Constitution of the USSR] (Moscow: Ediciones en lenguas extranjeras, 1947) (C.).

  Heiser, Víctor, La Odisea de un médico por 45 países [A Doctor’s Odyssey through 45 Countries], Buenos Aires: Editor Juaquín Gil, 1938.

  Lipschutz, Alejandro, El indoamericanismo y el problema racial en las Américas [Indo-Americanism and the Racial Problem in the Americas], Santiago, Chile: Editorial Nascimento, 1944, (c.) (I.).

  Rodríguez, Germinal, Higiene y Profilaxis [Health and Prophylaxis], Buenos Aires: Editorial Américalee, 1944.

  Troise, Emilio, Materialismo dialéctico [Dialectical Materialism], Buenos Aires: Editorial la Facultad, 1938.

  Vinogradov, N., La protección de la salud de los trabajadores en le Unión Soviética [Protection of Workers’ Health in the Soviet Union], Moscow: Ediciones en lenguas extranjeras, 1950.

  Important Works for The Role of the Doctor in Latin America

  Cottevieille-Giraudet, R., “Questions de raciologie humaine,” in Revue Antropologique, Paris, No. 46, 1937.

  Gauze, G.F., The Struggle for Existence, Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins Co., 1934.

  Malaria and Its Influence in World Health, New York: New York Academy of Medicine, 1943, Vol. 19, p. 599.

  Mason, J.A., Idiomas indígenas y su estudio [Indigenous Languages and Their Study], Mexico City: América indígena, 1943, Vol. 3, p. 231.

  Newman, H.H., Twins, a Study in Heredity and Environment, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937.

  Poblete Troncoso, M., El standard de vida de las poblaciones de América [The Standard of Living of Different Populations in the Americas], Santiago, Chile: Prensas de la Universidad de Chile, 1942.

  Redfield, R., Levels of Integration in Biological and Social Systems, Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Jacques Cattell Press, 1942.

  Reading Notes

  The following are Ernesto Guevara’s comments about books that he read, mainly during his stay in Mexico (1954–56), although these notes have no dates. They show the breadth of his literary interests and the rigor and depth of his reading. Neruda’s Canto General, which he considered “the best book in all of Latin America,” was particularly influential and would be a particular favorite throughout his life.

  Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España

  [True History of the Conquest of New Spain]

  by Bernal Díaz del Castillo1

  In Latin American literature, there is a primitive connection with old Spain, consisting of those Spaniards who were writing from these lands. The extraordinary history by Bernal Díaz is one of these.

  Bernal Díaz is Spanish, but the heart of his chronicle is about the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés and his army, an adventure that approaches the conceivable limits of human daring and that, on the lips of the chronicler, becomes something truly alive.

  This is both the most important and the most literary aspect of his work; its worth is as a personal testimony. The history related is not as important as how an intelligent soldier, with no other claim to culture, has set down his memories of the heroic era of imperial Spain and that Cortés, Sandoval, Alvarado and Cristóbal de Olid are described in their true, extraordinary— and human—dimensions.

  Bernal Díaz has not set himself the task of investigating whether or not the conquest had any religious justification, as did his more erudite contemporary Cieza de León, and he often compares his compatriots unfavorably with the Incas. For Díaz, the action had the primary justification that he was part of it—or, rather, that he was a member of the attacking army.

  Bernal never tried to depict nor could he have depicted the Indians’ spirit, but he has presented the most extraordinary historical picture of the conquistadors.

  His colorful prose, which is both antiquated and fresh, presents the central figure of this drama (from the invaders’ point of view): the intrepid, elusive, clever, intriguing, mellifluous and embittered Captain Hernán Cortés. He depicts the captain’s character and his grandeur—grandeur felt not only by his racial enemies but also by his Spanish friends and enemies— much better than any hagiography has done.

  When Bernal narrates his horror at the deep, low sound of the horns with which the Aztecs announced the sacrifice of captured Spaniards, the reader is transported to the state of mind of those uncultured soldiers, who were convinced of their god’s superiority over the bloody Huitzilobos, but whose faith faltered when they felt the imagined bite of the Aztec warriors on their arms and legs and knew what fate had in store for them. Close to a thousand of their compañeros in the small troop had already passed through the stomachs of the enemy army. Nevertheless, seeing no alternative, they kept on fighting until they became masters over the natives. And then came the sad part, the squabbles over money, Indians and glory. That heroic and pointless expedition to Higueras and the meaningless, stupid death of the Emperor Cuauhtémoc, who had been conquered both morally and physically, because of the torture to which Cortés subjected him in his search for gold. He was executed more to calm his captors’ inner anger than to put down a revolt that, by then, was no longer possible.

  1. Bernal Dìaz del Castillo (1492-1585) was a Spanish conquistador, who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico for Hernán Cortés. His manuscript was only published in 1632, some decades after his death.

  La crónica del Perú [The Chronicle of Peru]

  by Pedro Cieza de León1

  This is the first part of a monumental work written about everything that happened in Peru from its inhabitants’ earliest memories up to the time Cieza de León sat down to write. [In] the prologue, speaking of the four parts of the work, he says:

  “This first part is about marking the boundaries of Peru’s provinces, both at sea and on land, with longitude and latitude; a description of them all; the founding of new cities by the Spaniards; who the founders were; when they were settled; the Indians’ ancient rites and customs; and other strange things that are very different from ours and are worth noting.

  “The next three parts are on the rule of the Incas, the war of conquest and the civil wars.”

  In view of so many insubstantial, false accounts, the fairness and veracity of the data given by Cieza—who never cited anything if he was not sure of his facts, either because he himself knew them to be true or because they were attested to by some authoritative person, to whom he sometimes gave written testimony—are amazing.

  This part, the least interesting one in his account, nevertheless gives a precise idea of the historic setting in which he acted, and, although he defends the religious need for the conquest, he passes harsh judgment on the Spaniards who were guilty of mistreating the Indians. He absolves the Indians of their sins because the light of Christianity was, as yet, unknown to them.

  The most amazing thing about Cieza’s work is Cieza himself. This strange product of humanity was much less interested in gold and the feats of war than in the moral character of the conquerors and the conquered, who appeared in a setting in which the conquistadors, in their thirst for gold, were destroying everyone and everything in their path.

  1. Pedro Cieza de León (1520-54) was a Spanish soldier, who chronicled the conquest of Peru.

  La Araucana [The Araucanian Maiden]

  by Alonso de Ercilla1

  The first epic poem of the Americas. The first great American
poem. These are the broad distinctive characteristics of La araucana [The Araucanian Maiden], but it is a work that eludes the diagnostic precision of the critics. It breathes double nuances that are matched only in Bernal’s naive prose: the author’s admiration for both sides. This allows him to sing the praises of both the enormous courage of the Spanish invaders and the perseverance and intelligence with which Lautaro’s hosts defended themselves against their attackers.

  The work is too long for all of it to be good, but Antonio de Undurraga has made a beautiful synthesis of the poem. It is amazing to think that the soldier was a contemporary of Cervantes and Lope de Vega. Truly, such a good poet should be an unchallenged Latin American classic. Right from the beginning of the poem:

  Chile, distinguished and fertile

  province in the famed Antarctic region...

  up to the last verse, Ercilla holds your interest. What he writes is not always poetry—sometimes, it is simply an account—but his hendecasyllabic verse always shows considerable technical perfection combined with a complete naturalness that makes the poem flow like a steady stream.

  The people’s interests are a constant underlying theme in the poem. The masses are the actors in history; names are accidents of that mass. During the struggle for power, Colocolo says:

  Oh, Araucanians, when will end

  the rage that leads you all to hell?

  You fight your relative and friend

  but ’gainst the tyrant don’t rebel.

  His admonition has an effect; carrying a tree trunk on one’s shoulders is taken as the test for aspiring to leadership. Caupolicán is the victor, and the spectators pronounce sentence, saying:

  “On the shoulders of such strong men

  we place our obligations, then.”

  The ruthless struggle continues until Valdivia falls into the hands of those defending their land.

  There are no heroic scenes, theatrical words or anything like that. Valdivia wants to save his life and humbles himself before the victor:

  Caupolicán, glad he’s not dead

  — and is reduced to this condition—

  with victor’s voice and high-held head

  threatens him with inquisition.

  Valdivia the captive’s led

  to humble pie and to petition

  for his life. He says he’ll cease

  to fight and leave the land in peace.

  Throughout the poem, Ercilla shows respect for the opponents, recognizing in Lautaro a true war leader:

  Lautaro was wise, industrious and sure,

  a man with good advice, of gentle mien

  and medium height whose refined gesture

  lent authority such is seldom seen.

  And when Lautaro dies—betrayed by an Indian and caught off guard while making love—Ercilla’s laments reach a peak; it seems that he does not want his side to win:

  O, cruel fate! On the left side

  the point flies straight to wrest

  the most courageous heart that I’d

  e’er met, from out his breast.

  The Indians die around their chief, refusing to accept honorable surrender or quarter of any kind, and Ercilla narrates the death of his indigenous heroes with sorrow against the backdrop of the Spanish scourge, a pretext for emphasizing the indomitable courage of the conquered race. Ercilla knows that the Spaniards will win; he knows that, one day, the entire region will belong to the hosts of the kings and queens of Castile; but the final stanza hints at a subtle melancholy when, describing Chile, he says:

  See the stains of earth so covered

  that in secret they are kept.

  They will never be discovered;

  here, foreigners will never step...

  until God decides to let them show

  so their secret, thus, will grow.

  1. Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533–94) was a Spanish nobleman, soldier and poet. His epic poem La Araucana describes the courageous resistance of the indigenous Mapuche people to the Spanish conquest of Chile.

  Facundo (Civilización o barbarie) [Facundo (Civilization or Barbarism)]

  by Domingo F. Sarmiento1

  Sarmiento is one of those meteors that shoot across a people’s horizon every so often, only to be lost in a turn in the road, but always leaving the memory of their brilliance. In his historical work, his love for the people’s education should be remembered; in his political work, there is the handing over of Argentina to the imperialist voracity of the railroads; in his literary work, Facundo will ensure his name lives on even after everything else has been forgotten.

  He tried to make Facundo historical and dispassionate, cold as an account of bygone times, but it is just the opposite; it is such a vigorous, anecdotal, impassioned and exciting account that it makes for a timely document even today. History is the framework in which the novelist Sarmiento moves his very lifelike characters: Facundo, the savage with a certain nobility, the prototype of the pampas and the “barbarism” that Sarmiento censures; and Rosas, the cold and intelligent despot, whom Sarmiento astutely interprets as a product of the great cattle-raising latifundios; but above his characters he places the most important actor—the pampas, with all its barbaric grandeur.

  In the first part of the work, Sarmiento presents a brief description of the pampas, a sketch the poetic depth and penetration of which has only been surpassed by Hernández.

  The whole second part is dedicated to the life and death of Facundo Quiroga, up to the tragedy of Barranca-Yaco. Sarmiento takes it for granted that Rosas was responsible for his death—a hypothesis that has been repeated systematically throughout history, but for which there is no conclusive proof, though it is true that Facundo was a rival to be feared and the tyrant was the direct beneficiary of his death.

  In the third part, Sarmiento takes a look at the future, when the nightmare will have ended.

  The almost fantastic grandeur of the entire epic is further enhanced by Sarmiento’s correct analysis of the events that he experienced. (Sarmiento shows that he has read Guizot and has interpreted his theory of the class struggle.) Truly, Sarmiento was a genius, and Facundo proves it.

  1. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-88) was a prominent Argentine intellectual and president (1868-74). His greatest literary creation, Facundo, is a work of creative non-fiction and a scathing critique of the dictatorship of Juan Manuel de Rosas.

  El Evangelio y el Syllabus y Un dualismo imposible

  [The Gospel and the Syllabus and an Impossible Dualism]

  by Dr. Lorenzo Montúfar1

  This work, consisting of two tracts, serves as a magnificent means for measuring how much progress humanity has made. At the end of the 1800s, the period in which the tracts were written, they were a terrible anathema against the church, and it took courage to write them.

  The standard-bearer and guide, the Antichrist, was the United States, the symbol of liberalism. In the first tract, Dr. Montúfar analyzes in detail the Syllabus issued by Pius IX and shows its falsity from the primitive Christian point of view. In the second, he advocates a separation of church and state as the only valid solution for the problem of the two coexisting powers.

  The charming, lively work makes us smile today, but, in its time, it must have caused quite an uproar. It is dedicated to Montalvo, who had seen García Moreno fall in Ecuador.

  The final analysis shows that no government that is based on a religion gives its citizens freedom of belief. The author analyzes several kinds of relationships between church and state and comes down heavily on the side of the one adopted in the United States.

  1. Lorenzo Montúfar y Rivera (1823–98) was a Guatemalan politician and lawyer, who wrote a history of Central America.

  Martín Fierro

  by José Hernández1

  There are so many and such exhaustive commentaries on classical works that it is often very difficult to add anything, especially in this case, in which the author’s unacknowledged intention was his dispute with Sar
miento—who, at that time, represented the most progressive part of Argentine society. The poem’s social intent is worthy, as it gives a good description of the life and ill-treatment of the gauchos, but, basically, there is not much more to it than that.

  Martín Fierro achieves its lasting value because of the sustained, realistic tone of the poem, which paints a general panorama of the era in bright colors, and because of the true picture it gives of the characters through their words. It achieves poetic value in only a few exceptional passages, but some of those phrases and sentences are well worth inclusion in anthologies.

  The deserved fame of the passage about old Vizcacha is due to the perfect synchronization of the gaucho’s speech with the quaintness employed by the masses in every country. The Argentine Sancho Panza is much more alert and consciously lively than his famous predecessor, and there are some verses that are rather coarse, such as:

  If the oven’s to be heated,

  let the baker go and try.

  I won’t bestir myself. Know why?

  I take a lesson from the pig,

  who eats its young and grows so big:

  I work for me, myself and I.

  And also:

  Don’t suffer, even if the world

  falls down around your feet.