The Selk'nam of the Tierra del Fuego are anthropologically significant as an arguably "pristine" hunter-gatherer society that lasted until contact with European settlers in the late 1800s.1 Father Martin Gusinde estimated that at the end of the 19th Century there were 3500 to 4000 Selk'nam people residing on the Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego.2 By the end of the 20th Century the Selk'nam have all but disappeared from existence.
Location and Environment
The environment of Tierra del Fuego is greatly diversified as is the inhabitants’ adaptation to Isla Grande's conditions and resources. Part of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego is characterized by the Andean mountain chain in the west and south, while plateaus and low plains are in the east.3 Located at latitudes 52º and 55º south, Isla Grande (divided by Chile and Argentina) is approximately 48,000 square kilometers. Due to the drastic change in topography the eastern and western portions of the island differed in vegetation and climate.
The eastern plains of the island supported a hunting lifestyle on land while the severity of the western mountains dictated a much more coastal and marine focused lifestyle. Thus, the eastern inhabitants, the Selk'nam and their Haush neighbors, were described as Isla Grande's "foot people," due to their reliance on land resources. And the island's western and southern inhabitants, the Yaghan (Yámana), were known as "canoe people" due to a lifestyle based on exploitation of marine resources.4
The Selk'nam described the land in which they lives as párik, the steppe region north of River Hurr (Río Grande), and hérsk, the forest area to the south.5
Although the environment of southern South America has been described as harsh and inhospitable, it was actually suited to hunter-gatherer economies who have a history of some 11,000 years of foraging presence in Tierra del Fuego.6
History
European Contact
Tierra del Fuego became first known to explorers when Ferdinand Magellan discovered the islands in 1520. The Spanish explorer named the islands the "Land of Fire" or "Tierra del Fuego" due to the signal fires of the Selk'nam. For the next 250 years, Selk'nam and various explorers (Spanish, Dutch and English) came into contact resulting in violent confrontations. When possible, the Selk'nam practiced an avoidance strategy that they would later employ. In the second half of the 1800s the discovery of gold and sheep ranching brought European settlers to the island for good. Sheep overtook the guanaco (a small deer-like mammal that was a staple in the Selk'nam diet) and wire fencing built by the ranchers hampered the Selk’nam’s mobility. The Selk’nam began hunting sheep and cutting wires which led to a period of violence, forced removal and extermination by the settlers. Missions were built to protect the indigenous populations but the Selk'nam found the sedentary and confining missions inhospitable. The Selk’nam attempted to avoid white settlement and mission life by practicing the avoidance strategy that had worked hundreds of years before, slowly moving further and further inland and south. By 1900, the Selk’nam were too few to threaten estancias (ranches) on the island and many were working with Yámana at an estancia on Beagle Channel. Disease brought by Europeans decimated the population that had survived the hired killings and removal. The remaining Selk’nam on the island were limited to a camp near Fagnano Loke where a mission was built and in 1925 a reservation created. By the end of the 20th Century the Selk’nam are not only culturally extinct but no known Selk’nam people survive; there may however be descendants of Selk'nam still residing in Patagonia. Examination of Isla Grande's archaeological record, specifically examination of historical Selk’nam camps showed the high mobility and subsistence strategy practiced by Selk’nam in the last 100 years of the culture's existence.
Language
Selk'nam language has been placed in the Andean-Equatorial Macro-Phylum and along with Tehuelche forms the Tshon (Chon) language family.7
In the News
Young Chilean Keeps Nearly Extinct Languages Alive. Article in San Francisco Chronicle (12 August 2007) about a 16 year-old Chilean boy who is considered to be the only speaker of the Selk'nam language which died with the last Selk'nam woman. The boy used dictionaries and tapes made by missionaries of chants to learn the extinct language. See also The Voice of Spirits Past for more information and for a link to audio of a Selk'nam chant click here.
Subsistence
Selk'nam Lifestyle
The Selk’nam’s traditional lifestyle was one of high mobility following their main source of food, the guanaco (deer-like mammal), (as well as other small mammals). Typically, they moved in small groups and only stayed at a camp for a couple of days. However, groups typically had a territory with which they were associated (their haruwen). If it became necessary to travel in another haruwen, permission should be obtained from the residents. Trespassing (haruwen airen) was highly frowned upon, and had the potential for violent consequences8.
While neighboring people utilized canoes to hunt fish, whales, seal and crustaceans, when the Selk’nam utilized marine resources it was done from shore rather than on water. Selk'nam society had a fairly defined division of labor where men engaged in hunting and toolmaking, while women's labor involved childcare, gathering (berries, mushrooms, shellfish, bird eggs and firewood), manufacture of baskets and clothing and curing hides/skins. The non-egalitarian nature of Selk'nam society was reflected in women's responsibility for hauling domestic goods and children from one camp to another while men rarely carried anything other than their weapons, tools, and any game they hunted.9 Men's task required specialized skills including the creation of technology from bone, wood, and stone.
On the left: Selk'nam men (from Provincia de Tierra del Fuego website).
On the right: Selk'nam women (from Tierra del Fuego website)
Considered the "real food" guanaco (jepr) could feed a family for 4 to 5 days and provided valuable resources to make clothing and shelters. Fat was mixed with clay for body paint and pacifiers for infants.10 Bones, skins, tendons were all utilized and nothing was wasted by the Selk'nam. When possible, meat was preserved and might be left at a camp for when a group returned. Further, Selk'nam society held an ethos of help to those in need - a mutual help ideology which ensured that if possible Selk'nam would provide aid and resources to one another.11
Guanaco (photo from Llama Fibre website).
Social Organization
Father Guisinde found the Selk'nam were comprised of 39 patrilocal, exogamous bands. The Selk'nam were organized into over 70 localized lineages connected to specific hunting territories. Land ownership and lineage were tied ensuring that all man of a lineage had the right to hunt on the lineage's land. The Selk'nam were very territorial and would defend trespass by other lineages. However, if asked, other lineages would be received as guests and allowed to use the resources. As blood relatives were forbidden to marry, individuals had to look for a mate from a different territory. However, despite belonging to a localized patrilineal group the most common day-to-day existence was a single family unit.12
Kinship Terms
aiinh father
a'me mother
tca'nyik stepfather
po"onh mother's sister, stepmother
po"ot, okwa'n father's brother
kan father's sister
tc'e mother's brother
ho'o grandfather
ra'mhkep grandchild
hoho'nh grandmother
lal son
t'am daughter
ã'pek elder brother
ã'pka'n elder sister
a'tce younger brother
a''anh younger sister
a'nenk stepson, brother's son (m.sp.), sister's son (w.sp)
a'nxen stepdaughter, brother's daughter (m.sp), sister's daughter (w.sp.)
a'nuet sister's son (m.sp.), brother's son (w.sp.)
anue'ten sister's daughter (m.sp.), brother's daughter (w.sp.)
wi'yekar male cousin (first to third degree)
ka'nkar female cousin (first to third degree)
a'unk'en father-in-law
a'remc mother-in-law
wai brother-in-law
namkc sister-in-law
wai'kter son-in-law
tamwe'xen daughter-in-law13
Religious Beliefs and Ritual
Selk'nam men painted for a Hain (from Tierra del Fuego website)
Although considered an egalitarian society, the nature of inequality within Selk'nam society was characterized by the culture's one great ceremony, Hain. The ceremony reflected the patriarchal nature of the culture as the rite focused on male-only initiation and a ritualized domination of feminine structures. The Hain corresponded to the Selk'nam people's identification to “skies,” territory where he or she was born. Sky identity placed restrictions on where people could watch during the Hain, whom they could marry, and what symbols they could paint on their bodies. The actual ceremony was lengthy, lasting as long as the food supply lasted; an individual Hain could last for a year or more. Hain was a learning experience along with the initiation rite and an adolescent male could not marry until he graduated. Hain also served as a social outlet of Selk’nam who typically lived in small 1 or 2 family groups, coming together rarely, except for Hain. The Selk'nam believed that there were two spirits of the ceremony, Shoort and Xalpen, personifying the struggle of the heroic male trying to control the dangerous female. These two spirits represent the misogynst/misanthropoist couple. This struggle of male over female was a reality of female life where male authority dominated, although violence against women was discouraged. Positioned as opposite forces, men were the sun and women the moon. Gender hierarchy was reinforced throughout the ceremony in specific events, including where Xalpen symbolically killed male initiates and thus males sacrificed themselves for society. One of the last Hain to be held was a blended ceremony performed by Selk'nam and neighboring Haush in 1923 and lasted 55-days.
The Last Selk'nam
Lola Kiepja
Lola Kiepja in 1966 (photo by Anne MacKaye Chapman)
Anthropologist Anne MacKaye Chapman worked with Lola Kiepja during the winter of 1964/1965 and again in the spring of 1966 recording Selk'nam chants and basic vocabulary. Born in the late 1800s, Lola was one of the last Selk'nam residing on the reservation near Lago Fagnano. A shaman, Lola possessed indepth knowledge of Selk'nam mysticism and mythology, and was the last Selk'nam shaman. Prior to 1900, Lola had very little interaction with European settlers on Tierra del Fuego. For the first several decades in the 20th Century, Lola and her family worked on sheep farms during the summer and in the winter lived traditionally following guanaco and performing the great ceremony, Hain. In her later years, after her family had died, Lola lived in a small hut on the reservation by herself. During her work with Chapman, Lola offered extensive memories of Selk'nam stories and chants. Her knowledge provided a second chance to obtain new information on the Selk'nam; "Claude Lévi-Strauss believed that this might be the last opportunity to obtain new data concerning a group which for decades had been considered extinct."14 The last Selk'nam to have lived as a Selk'nam before reservation life, Lola spent her last year sharing the rich culture and history of her people. She passed away on 9 October 1966, well over the age of ninety.
Of her time spent with Lola, Chapman wrote:
Quite often when I greeted her in the morning, she would smile widely saying: "I found another", meaning that during the night she had recalled a chant she had heard many years earlier and she always remembered the name of the owner of the chant. She would ask me excitedly to hurry and get the machine ready lest the chant disappear from her memory before we could record it. Once recorded and we heard it played back, we were relieved. The chant had been saved from oblivion. She did not always want to repeat a chant. When I insisted, she would laugh and ask me why I wanted to record it again, in view of the fact that it was yippen (ugly) as she thought some were. At other times, however, she understood that her voice was being recorded to preserve the chants. She would say that she was recording for the Indians to the north (north of Magellan Strait). Of the ninety-two chants recorded that year, eighty-seven (the guanaco chant twice) were issued on four records in 1972 and 1978.15
Angela Loij
Angela Loij in 1969 (photo by Anne MacKaye Chapman)
Born at the beginning of the 20th Century, Angela Loij was one of the last Selk'nam. Angela, however, never lived as Selk'nam as her family lived and worked on a sheep farm, Estancia Sara, and at a nearby mission. Chapman met Angela during her work with Lola and Angela became her principle informant upon Lola's death. Where Lola provided knowledge of Selk'nam mysticism, beliefs, stories and chants, Angela was able to provide a history of her people. She was able to talk about more than 3000 people whom she knew or knew of - and where she did not know names, she knew kin relations, making genealogical records possible.
Of Angela's contribution, Chapman wrote:
Many of the three thousand appeared and reappeared in diverse situations about which she told me over the years and thus it was that little by little her culture acquired a sense that went beyond the purely ethnographic description and revealed different levels of what it had meant to be alive then and living as a Selk'nam.16
Without Lola and Angela much of the history, stories, beliefs, language, and lives of the last Selk'nam would have been lost. Their experiences and memories provide a record of Selk'nam society years after Selk'nam culture disappeared.
For extensive biographies on both women, see Anne MacKaye Chapman's articles:
End of the World - Lola Kiepja
Angela Loij
Ethnonyms
There are many different names and variations which are used to describe the Selk'nam. These include variations on the two predominantly used names (O'ona, Aona, Aoniks, and the Oens as variants of "Ona", and Shilk'nam, Shilkenam, Shelknam, Schelkenam, Shikl'anan, Shelk'enum, Shil'k'enum, Shilkanan as variants of "Selk/nam"), along with other, less common names like the Haush (Haus), Foot Indians, or the Foot People.
Research and the Ethnographic Present
At all times the editors of the site attempt to present the cultures in a holistic manner representative of the people within them. However, a completely accurate depiction may be difficult, especially when combining research from several researchers and several time periods. People of the Selk'nam lineage may still exist, but Angela Loij and Lola Kiepja were considered to be the last full-blooded Selk'nam who had been raised in the culture.
References Cited
Borrero, Luís Alberto
1994 The Extermination of the Selk'nam. In Key Issues in Hunter-Gatherer Research. Ernest S. Burch, Jr., Linda J. Ellanna, ed. Pp. 247-261. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Chapman, Anne MacKaye
2003[1975] "Angela Loij." Anne MacKaye Chapman. http://www.rism.org/chapman/angela.htm (accessed 14 November 2007).
Chapman, Anne MacKaye
2003[1990] "Economy and Social Structure of the Selk'nam Society." Anne MacKaye Chapman. http://www.rism.org/chapman/ecosocial.htm (accessed 13 November 2007).
Chapman, Anne MacKaye
2003[1971] "End of the World." Anne MacKaye Chapman. http://www.rism.org/chapman/end.htm (accessed 14 November 2007).
Chapman, Anne MacKaye
1997 The Great Ceremonies of the Selk'nam and the Yámana - A Comparative Analysis. In Patagonia: Natural History, Prehistory and Ethnography at the Uttermost End of the Earth. Colin McEwan, Luís A. Borrero, and Alfredo Prieto, eds. Pp. 82-109. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Chapman, Anne MacKaye
1983 Drama and power in a hunting society: The Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego. Anne MacKaye Chapman. Cambridge: University Press.
Holdgate, M.W.
1961 Man and Environment in the South Chilean Islands. The Geographic Journal 127(4):401-414.
Lowie, Robert H.
1933 Selk'nam Kinship Terms. American Anthropologist, New Series. 35(3):546-548.
McCulloch, Robert D., et al.
1997 The Glacial and Post-Glacial Environmental History of Fuego-Patagonia. In Patagonia: Natural History, Prehistory and Ethnography at the Uttermost End of the Earth. Colin McEwan, Luís A. Borrero, and Alfredo Prieto, eds. Pp. 12-31. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
External Links
Electronic Human Relations Area Files (eHRAF)
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