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122 ABSTRACTS IN ENGLISH

Helga Heineken and Regula Rohland de Langbehn. "Ilse von Rentzell. Vita".
This preliminary biography of Ilse von Rentzell, later Atkinson, (1893-1985) shows
that this woman's life passed through very distinct phases. Born and educated
in Germany, she arrived to Argentina after World War One. She settled first as
an administrator in the estancia her family possessed in the Chaco National
Territory, near Resistencia, in western Chaco. There she began to study the
autoctonous flora, and wrote short texts on the life in Chaco, some of which
appeared first in contemporary liberal periodicals edited by Ernesto Alemann
before they were collected in a book published in Stuttgart in 1929. By that time
she had already left the estancia, and had met Friedrich Reichert, a German
professor of chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires and an avid mountaineer.
Reichert invited her to his home in southern Chile, where she worked in the house
and garden. During the 1930s she took part in some of Reicherts expeditions in
the southern Andes as a designer, photographer, and writer. Later she collabo-
rated with the Botanical Institute Darwinion in San Isidro near Buenos Aires and
married George Atkinson. The couple then relocated to San Martín de los Andes,
where she stayed for good after his death, caring for a beautiful flower garden.

Ilse von Rentzell. Texts translated into Spanish by Macarena Mohamad. "Intro-
ducción" (Introduction), "En el monte" (In the Monte), La construcción del rancho
(Construction of the Rancho), "Lecho nocturno" (Nightly Rest), "El oro blanco"
(White Gold), "De la rentabilidad del oro blanco" (On the Profitability of White
Gold), "Parto en el campo" (Birth in the Countryside), "El pollo que cacarea" (The
Crowing Chicken), "Chinas y chinitos" (Chinas and Chinitos), "Sobre el trato con
los indios" (On Interactions with Indians are treated). These ten texts are taken
from Ilse von Rentzell's book Im argentinischen Chaco (1929; In the Argentinian
Chaco). The first two are dedicated to her passion for botany. The third and fourth
texts describe living conditions in the Chaco, such as housing and climate. These
are followed by two essays on the economics of cotton growing. Three texts
focus on her experiences with native people, and the last one is devoted to the
treatment of indigenous people by criollos. The author herself betrays amuse-
ment at the of her Indian clients' cravings for honey in the grocery she adminis-
ters, thereby unwittingly depicting sentiments of cultural superiority.