José Tombé. An anthropologist’s novel and its predictions about the indigenous leaders and their struggles in Colombia

Abstract

Can a novel predict reality? This paper explains the contradictions present in the main character of the novel Jose Tombe, his similarities with real indigenous leaders of the Colombian indigenous movements, and the author’s real life actions and contradictions with the message of his novel.Written in the early 1930s portraying the life of an imaginary indigenous hero capable of freeing indigenous people from the exploitation imposed by “white” landowners. The novel reveals a representation of indigenous organizations and leaders that prevails in the heads of academics and other intellectuals dealing with indigenous rights. This representation implies that indigenous people are both heroic for having stood the domination and exploitation of the national society but, at the same time, are incapable of dealing with the responsibilities of national political life, and lack capacity to make their own political decisions.