Mapuche, Arabs and fake news. Revisiting the proceedings on alleged mass crimes and ritual anthropophagy of Syrian-Lebanese in El Cuy (1907-1912)

Abstract

This article revisits the most famous police case linked to the Syrian-Lebanese migratory experience in Patagonia. It is about the alleged mass murder and ritual consumption of dozens of Arab merchants by indigenous Mapuche at the beginning of the 20th century in El Cuy region, Río Negro. Although there are significant precedents on this case, most of them have focused on the description of the alleged criminal conduct or on the reconstruction of the process from the perspective of the indigenous actors, without paying sufficient attention to the experiences of Arab immigrants. On the other hand, despite the fact that previous studies have helped to dismantle the fallacies of police corollaries, they have not managed to put an end to sensationalist chronicles in the main media, even today. In this sense, a new investigation of the judicial file is proposed to offer a critical summary reading. Finally, it is argued that the alleged crimes have been used to promote repressive policies against the Mapuche population since the beginning of the 20th century to the present. The latter is key to explain the recurrence of fake news.