Carlos Gamerro - The Islands

May 21st 1982

— We decided to make our base in a building that we came to call ‘the school’, for its likeness to our own, though I fail to understand what function it can have for the natives. First contact: I tried to speak to them in all the principal languages, including Castilian, Portuguese, Italian and, thanks to a soldier from R5, even Hebrew, which, to my great relief, they did not comprehend; I had come to fear that this colony would be one of the dreaded kibbutzim mentioned in the Andinia Plan. It was while I was in this state of perplexity that I heard some guttural sounds behind my back, so dissimilar to those of any known human language that I at first supposed the intrusion to be that of a prankster; but imagine my surprise when I observed the glum faces of the natives light up in reply and begin speaking all at once in the same uncouth accents. I turned round to see which of my men was responsible. None of them. It turned out to be that soldier from R5, who had approached me on our arrival, claiming he knew me. On being questioned, the soldier explained to me that a

similar tongue, which he had learned on his travels, is spoken on some islands in the North. Incredible though this news may seem, the unquestionable fact is that he can communicate with them, and I have, as of today, had him transferred to my company in the capacity of tongue-talker.

22nd May 1982

— Thanks to our tongue-talker, my knowledge of the natives and their customs has increased considerably. They call themselves by the name of

Kelpers

, which in their tongue signifies something like ‘man’ or ‘men’. Until our arrival, they thought they were the only men on earth! The word

kelp

is also applied by them to a certain species of long, leathery seaweed, most abundant in these waters, hence I surmised that they see themselves as men made of seaweed (before we laugh at their naivety, let us remember that we ourselves seek our origins in a material still less apt — clay — and that the Ancient Maya believed themselves to have been kneaded from corn). The name might also signify ‘seaweed eaters’, though I never saw them ingest it howsoever, either raw or cooked; perhaps they keep it in reserve for moments of extreme scarcity. Considering how central sheep are to their way of life, it is at least curious that they have not taken to calling themselves

sheepers

But these animals were no doubt introduced into the Islands in much later times by seafarers, changing the life of these peoples as the horse did the savages of our South.

The base of their society seems to be, as among ourselves, the monogamous family, which proves the

universal character of this association. The number of children rarely surpasses two, which explains the scantiness of the population: more would be hard-pressed to survive, given their precarious means of subsistence. Their religion is surprisingly like our own, as if both stemmed from a common trunk; or, more probably, it was instilled in them by some missionary and, over the centuries, the lack of guidance and their natural tendency to paganism have removed it from its original form; our chaplain considers the possibilities of accomplishing a rapid conversion as being very high. They know the cross, though they do not associate it with Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is not depicted on it. Nor do they recognise the Virgin or the principal saints, though they do respect the Sabbath Day and gather in a small building that attempts distinctly to ape — albeit with the candour of a child raising a castle in the sand — the great churches of Christendom. They seem to be familiar with the concept of God, as they are with the sacred book, which they call

Bible

(N.B. the similarity to the original). Leafing through its thin pages, I noticed a similar arrangement and the recurrence of names in which, with a little effort, it was possible to detect the echoes of the original, the phonetics of their rough tongue having gradually deformed them to pronounceable variants:

Eve

,

Noah, Moses, Delilah, St. Mark, Pontius Pilate

, et al.

These people do not know money and may not even practise trade, other than some elementary form of barter (which, rather than our complex institution of exchange, calls to mind the image of innocent children

exchanging cards or little balls of coloured glass). Husbands and wives are faithful to each other their entire lives and both take part in caring for their young; adultery or sexual aberrations are unknown, as is stealing or any form of deception. The idea of law, such as we conceive it, is unknown to them: they are each their own judges; they live long (one need only reckon up the high proportion of elderly people in relation to the total population) and free of disease, in spite of the rigours of the climate and the arduous struggle for sustenance. Their system of government, if such it can be called, is of the most primitive kind: the republican; the perfect equality among the individuals must for a long time retard their civilisation. As we see that those animals whose instinct compels them to live in society and obey a chief are most capable of improvement, so is it with the races of mankind. I have seen with my own eyes how even a piece of food given to one is torn into shreds and distributed to all, for all that no one individual be satisfied. It is difficult to understand how a chief can arise until there is property of some sort by which he might manifest his superiority and increase his power. Moreover, their thirst for change, the need to shake off the yoke of centuries, manifested itself no sooner had we arrived. It was a sight to behold how tamely they accepted our dominion, becoming accustomed to authority as if their form of organisation were no different; as if, rather than imposing on them a foreign order, we had come to fill a vacuum that they could not remedy on their own. Whatever their rank or authority, they have, from the

outset, rendered us the respect and fear accorded to gods rather than to men. There exists in man a natural tendency to obedience, which freely manifests itself as soon as it is given opportunity, just as domesticated animals, unlike wild ones, naturally adapt to the demands of the service of man, and training has merely to accompany instinct, rather than combat it. Rather than our arms, it was the example of our organisation and discipline that opened the doors of their island to us.

25th May 1982

— A glorious national holiday. We celebrated with a barbecue, which much improved the morale of the rank and file, in spite of the two sheep that we sacrificed barely satisfying our hunger. The scarcity of provisions is alarming. Later, after handing round some steaming mugs of boiled maté, which the

Kelpers

eagerly drank, I made a short speech declaring them full Argentinian citizens.

26th May 1982

— In the afternoon, with the aid of our tongue-talker, I continued my studies of the local tongue. If, of course, it is possible to give such a name to the barbarous agglomeration of sounds that serves the most basic ends of communication among them. According to our notions, the language of this people scarcely deserves to be termed articulate. It could be compared to a man clearing his throat, but, certainly, no South American ever cleared his throat with so many hoarse, guttural, and clicking sounds. The verbal system is rudimentary to an extreme degree, each verb presenting three or four forms at most, barely enough to account

for the distinctions between past, present, and future. One need only compare with the one hundred and fifty forms that any of our Spanish verbs possess to become clearly aware of the inequality between their tongue and our own. The subjunctive modes and the preterites are confused in the same verbal form, as if that which does not present itself to the senses should not be susceptible to analysis or differentiation. It is common for the same term to stand for the meaning of several, such as