Eight Heroes and Heroines Whose Names Are Immortalized

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El Panteón de los Héroes (The Panthenon of Heroes) by Oleo de Arturo Michelena, (1898)

Eight Heroes and Heroines Whose Names Are Immortalized

Why do the names of some men and women survive the wearing effects of time, living through centuries of recorded history as ‘heroes and heroines’ while other people’s names vanish like dreams upon their death? There can be no doubt that one of the deciding factors is how some people found opportunities in times of oppression, and the decisions they made when the ‘call to action’ came. Eight of history’s most memorable people; from ruthless princess wrestlers to eye eating warriors, all paid the ultimate price for what they believed was right and true, thus, immortalizing their names for all time.

Galvarino

The Mapuche people are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and south-western Argentina, including parts of present-day Patagonia. Most modern scholars hold the southern border of the Inca Empire as being situated between Santiago and the Maipo River or somewhere between Santiago and the Maule River, meaning the bulk of the Mapuche escaped Inca rule.

Galvarino was a 16th-century Mapuche warrior who is recorded as having fought in the Battle of Lagunillas in the Arauco War on November 8, 1557. The army of García Hurtado de Mendoza clashed with the Mapuche army near some shallow lakes to the south of the Bio-Bio River. Galvarino was said to have been captured along with 100 of his fellow warriors, who were all tortured, losing a hand and their noses. Governor Mendoza was in charge of the punishments and while Galvarino lost both hands he kept his nose and was released, returning home with his men.

La Araucana, poem by D. Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga. Ed. illustrated. Madrid (Public Domain)


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