“Suelo propio y originario”: Manuel Quintín Lame and his thoughts about space during “La Quintinada” (1910-1922)

Abstract

This work approximates the way in which Manuel Quintín Lame, an indigenous leader from
the beginning of the 20th century, gave meaning to the space he inhabited and where a supra-
ethnic resistance movement against territorial dispossession, known as “La Quintinada”, would emerge. Here, we examine the visions that Lame built on the “earth” and the “mount” (the “nature”), as well as the factors of his historical/cultural context that shaped this way of thinking. We propose that Lame conceived the “land” as an ancestral legacy, as well as an original and providential right of indigenous peoples, while he understood the “mount” (“nature”) as a space of knowledge and wisdom. This process toke place in the middle of a context of mobilization and the construction of an indigenous identity.