View on the Indigenous

Marquez shows the view that the Europeans had on the indigenous Latin Americans through the characters of Visitacion, her brother, and Rebeca. Rebeca is described as eating earth and white wash. While we talked about in class that this could represent how she is natural and wants to keep the true culture of the land, it could have other meaning as well. Her eating of earth and whitewash is very abnormal, and I think it could show how the Europeans viewed the indigenous as lesser and not quite as advanced. Another example is how the people of Macondo put the blame for the insomia plague on the indigenous.  Marquez also uses the insomnia plague, where people not only lose sleep but lose memory, to show the loss of the identity of the Latin American people. If you lose your memory, you lose your sense of identity, similar to the Latin American's loss of independent culture.