Columbus and the monkey puzzle tree

Today, October 12th, is the anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World in 1492. Several countries have long celebrated the date of his 'discovery' as a holiday and in the USA Columbus Day is officially set on the preceding Monday (just past). Traditionally the day was used to focus on patriotism, citizenship and loyalty especially by Italian-American communities.

Nowadays observance of the day is not universal, and there is a strong anti-Columbus Day movement especially among the native peoples of the New World for whom 'discovery' by the Europeans heralded the greatest genocide the world has known, and left a legacy of domination, oppression and racism. There are also objections to the myths that portray Columbus as someone deserving admiration. In Santiago, Chile, this week, 10, 000 people marched to protest in support of the Mapuche people, the country's largest indigenous minority, for whom Columbus Day is a day of mourning.

What has all this got to do with my neighbourhood monkey puzzle tree and its puzzled monkey gate? Well, the tree is a native of the Southern Andes, first cultivated in Britain around 1850 whereafter it became popular in Victorian suburban gardens. The popular name started as a horticulturalist's joke: the tree is extremely spiky, including the trunk but no actual monkeys live where it originates. Its botanical name however is Araucaria araucana. That name was given because of the tree's association with the Araucanian people - now known, more correctly, as the Mapuche. For these mountain dwellers the pehuen, as the tree is called, was vital to their economy and for one group in particular, the Pehuenches, the nuts were their staple food and the tree was sacred. (It is described as a living fossil on account of its longevity, maybe as much as a thousand years.)

The Spanish invaders massacred the Mapuche in their quest for land but despite massive bloodshed never completely managed to subdue them. Conflict with the Chilean government continues even today. The 'monkey puzzle' pehuen tree has been almost wiped out by lumbering and now has protected status.

Christopher Columbus has a lot to answer for and for me that is the significance of the monkey puzzle tree.