The Aborigines of Australia are believed to have appeared on the continent at least 50,000 years ago. The settlement process took place during the last Ice Age from the South - East Asia, although some people think from India. Local Aborigines are considered "prototypes" ancient man You can be convinced of this just by looking at a few photographs - huge facial features that are not characteristic of a modern person, a languid look, a large disproportionate body.

The Aborigines lived there until Europeans arrived at the end of the 18th century and began fighting for territory and water. During that period, a considerable part of the local population died, and the conquerors brought “European” diseases, which killed more than half of the local population.


As a result of the wars, many of the Aborigines ended up on reservations and did not have civil rights. Only in 1967 were indigenous people recognized as citizens, reservations disappeared, historical lands began to be given away, names were renamed, and attention began to be paid to art.

This civilization is considered the least studied and primitive currently existing on our planet, and scientists call the aborigines the most backward (naturally, from our point of view) people. Although, I won’t hide it, I would agree with them.
“Whites”, in the absence of their own culture, open art galleries, sell paintings of aborigines for very immodest money (from 3,000 to 40,000 dollars), create workshops where you can come and paint a picture together with the aborigines. The aborigines themselves rent out lands, for example the famous Uluru. Nowadays, modern Australian aborigines make an impression that is not just terrifying, but somehow enters the scene. Dressed in stretched Chinese T-shirts and pants, unkempt women, all this is repulsive. They are completely different, they walk in crowds, from side to side, from store to store. In cities they look very ridiculous, local residents try not to pay attention to them, it seems that even the most recent immigrant from a foreign country will be closer to Australian “white” citizens than a local aborigine.
What are they doing now? It’s hard to say; the Australian state now pays them sufficient benefits on which they can live well. You can often find an aborigine drinking alcohol, or lying in a park or spending the night in a dry river bed (in Russian, “bum”)



For the first time in my life, I was uncomfortable and scared to photograph someone, either their gaze was inadequate, or it seemed that such a colossus could simply hit me with my fist. I photographed them mostly in secret, sometimes from the car. A couple of times they asked for money for a photo... 20 dollars. To the question, “Can I take a picture of you?” They answered that take a picture of him and pointed to the neighbor.

On a March day in 1923, 60 Indians in boats moored to the shore of the Beagle Channel. It was late summer in Tierra del Fuego, the rain had subsided a little, and the air had warmed up to plus nine. Mile after mile the Indians made their way through the labyrinth of islands and channels, just to see for the last time their friend, the only European whom they accepted into their tribe.

This man's name was Martin Gusinde, he was German, originally from Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland). He brought food and gifts to the shore of the strait. That day he said goodbye forever to the Yamana Indians and took his last photographs. At the last minute, he “shuddered, looking at this handful of people,” Martin wrote these words in his diary that evening; for four years he led it day after day.

The people standing before Martin were the few remaining of the Yamana tribe that had inhabited the southern tip of America since prehistoric times. The natural conditions of these places seem to be directed against humans: endless storms and snowfalls, eternal cold, but the Indians adapted to them. No white man could compare with them in endurance. They had an unusually expressive language. And yet, and yet... “A terrible fate was counting down last years their lives,” Gusinda wrote.

Martin Gusinde was interested in ethnography and photography. This successful combination allowed him to capture the daily life of the Indians, which he observed for several years. He knew that the hour of their death was approaching, and could not prevent it. He only tried to preserve their customs and way of life in the memory of mankind with his photographs and his notes. In addition, he wanted - one might say, alas, after the fact - to change the bad reputation that had developed about them in Europe.

In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to sail from Atlantic Ocean to the Quiet Strait, which was later named after him, dividing the American continent and Tierra del Fuego. At night, Magellan’s sailors saw many lights - they were Indian fires - that’s why he called this area Tierra del Fuego, Tierra del Fuego. Both he and subsequent navigators were convinced that the places they discovered were the outskirts of the legendary South Earth, a continent that, as was then believed, occupied the territory around the South Pole.

Only in 1616, two Dutch captains rounded Cape Horn and established that Tierra del Fuego was an island. For a long time no one was interested in this abandoned piece of land, where it always snowed or a hurricane raged; Huge waves beat against its coast, and the land was inaccessible due to glaciers and forests overgrown with ferns. Only two centuries later did Europeans become better acquainted with the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego.

The German naturalist Georg Forster, who found himself in Tierra del Fuego in 1774 with the expedition of James Cook, described the character of the Fuegians as “an outlandish mixture of stupidity, indifference and idleness.” Even Charles Darwin, half a century later, called them “poor, miserable creatures... with ugly faces.”

Their language seemed to him “a clamor and noise that hardly deserves to be called articulate speech.” The disparaging review of the famous scientist etched the image of the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego in the minds of Europeans.

In 1881, the island was divided between Argentina and Chile. By that time, sheep farmers had already displaced the Indians from their usual hunting grounds. Unfortunately for the Indians, gold was found on Tierra del Fuego, and soon miners invaded the area. The last genocide on the American continent has begun. The Indians disturbed everyone: they hunted for sheep, not knowing what private property was, and took whatever they liked from the gold miners’ camps. In those years, scalp hunters received a pound sterling for each pair of ears cut off from killed Indians. Those same natives who managed to escape from the thugs found themselves defenseless against diseases brought by Europeans - tuberculosis and measles. The survivors were finished off by alcohol, to which they quickly became addicted. Half a century later, when Martin Gusinde first came to Tierra del Fuego in 1919, the number of Indians had dropped from eight thousand to six hundred.

Martin was then 32 years old. He was a missionary and taught at a private German school in Santiago. And in his free time he passionately engaged in ethnographic research. To do this, I had to take a vacation at my own expense. Everything to explore remote corners lost islands, Martin Gusinde spent a total of 22 months. In 1925 he returned to Europe and published his notes in three volumes. To date, his books remain the most extensive source of information about the life of the Fuegians.

The island was inhabited by three nationalities. The tribe, which called themselves Selknam, hunted and roamed the interior, following the paths along which the guanacos, the main object of their hunt, moved. The Europeans called this tribe Ona. The most important part of their equipment was a bow and arrows, a flint for striking fire, and a thick cape made of guanaco skins. To escape the cold, she rubbed her naked bodies with clay and guanaco fat. At night they slept in huts made of logs and moss, huddling close to a smoldering fire.

In addition to them, sea nomads also lived on Tierra del Fuego: the Yamana (they are also called the Yagana) and the Halakvulup (in scientific literature Alakaluf). Every day they sailed in boats through the labyrinths of straits and channels. Alakalufs inhabited the western coast, Yamana numerous islands near Cape Horn. The whole family fit in the boat. The husband sat in the bow with a harpoon in his hand, intently looking out for seals. At the other end of the boat, the wife rowed continuously. In addition, her duty was to dive into icy water for sea ​​urchins, and in the evening tie the boat near the shore that’s why the islanders taught only girls to swim. Wind, dampness, cold - even at sub-zero temperatures, the Indians remained completely naked. Do not consider a piece of seal skin the size of a handkerchief, with a belt, as clothing. He was moved along the body to the most frozen places.

Due to the eternal cold and dampness, the sea nomads needed to tirelessly maintain the fire. Every morning, dismantling their pitiful barriers from the wind, they carried smoldering coals in a wicker into the boat and sparingly fed the fire with moss and branches until they landed ashore in the evening.

Gusinde visited all three tribes. He lived with them in the camps, participated in their weddings and funerals, studied with a healer and even underwent an initiation ceremony. Anticipating that he was becoming the last eyewitness of the dying traditions, Gusinde, like a man possessed, wrote down all the details of what he saw.

First of all, it was necessary to overcome the Indians' fear of the camera. He knew that the natives called him “shadow catcher”, and therefore he filmed very carefully. Among the shots he took, there are rare ones taken with a hidden camera. In most cases, the Indians being photographed specially prepared for the shooting, so that the resulting photographs were portraits. Having carefully chosen their decorations and taken the appropriate pose, the islanders peered with deep seriousness into the lens that was to preserve the last memory of them.

Of all Gusinda’s journeys, the most difficult was the fourth, which lasted more than a year. Four months of which he lived among her. He slept on brushwood, ate half-raw guanaco meat, washed himself with snow and was completely covered in lice. Then the ethnographer spent two months in the labyrinth of islands off west coast Tierra del Fuego, trying to find the remaining Alakaluf Indians. By that time there were 250 of them. All this time, it rained incessantly, with only occasional glimpses of the sun.

According to his observations, in all three tribes the family formed an independent nomadic unit with a strict division of responsibilities between man and woman. Life went on in constant search food. They were interrupted only by holidays dedicated to birth and initiation, weddings and funerals. Everyday life was also diversified by ritual ceremonies, when people turned to the spirits of nature.

The Indians attached particular importance to raising children. Gusinde discovered that Yamana mothers kept the dried umbilical cord of their children for four years. Then they caught a small bird - a wren - and brought the child its umbilical cord and the caught bird; the child tied the umbilical cord around the wren's neck and released it into the wild. It is amazing that, despite all the difficulties of nomadic life, the Indians managed to preserve these fragile ribbons for four years. Doesn't this speak about the care with which mothers treated their offspring?

Gusinde received his deepest understanding of the worldview of the Indians during initiation. He was the first European to be allowed to participate in this ritual, which marked the transition from childhood to adulthood. Over the course of several months, the subjects were told the testaments of their ancestors, ethical principles, and were initiated into the practical skills of their tribe. They had to endure difficult trials. They spent a long time in a particularly uncomfortable position: their heads were bowed, their arms crossed on their chests, their knees tucked up; sometimes for ten days in a row they were not allowed to relax or stretch their legs; They even had to spend several hours of sleep turning on their sides in the same position. But how they knew how to relax, even when crowded together on a tiny piece of land!

For the first time, the Yamana did not allow Gusinda to take notes. But a year later, during another initiation, the Yamana for the first time allowed him to record on paper the commandments of the Fuegians.

However, not all scholars have the same appreciation for the quality of his extensive records. Although Gusinda managed to win the trust of the Indians, who voluntarily answered his countless questions, he did not have time to study the language of each of the three tribes. Therefore, he depended on a translator who was not always knowledgeable. In addition, by the beginning of this century, the way of life of the Fuegians had already changed due to contacts with farmers and missionaries. In many families, ancient customs and myths existed only very fragmentarily.

Using these pieces, Gusinde reconstructed, so to speak, an “ideal picture of the pre-European past,” the validity of which no one could verify. And it is quite natural that this picture, despite the ethnographer’s sober and tenacious observation, nevertheless retained much of his own ideas about what the Indians should have thought and felt. As he himself admitted, he was motivated by the idea that the Indians of Tierra del Fuego “as representatives of the so-called primitive peoples belong to the oldest human groups accessible to us today... My goal was to find and preserve the primordial human values ​​preserved by these people.”

The missionary Gusinde adhered to the doctrine of the supreme deity, believing that it was in backward cultures that the most ancient religion was preserved: faith in the supreme deity who created the world and maintained the world order.

However, the greatest place in his writings is occupied by strictly objective descriptions of the daily life of the Indians and their holidays. These records contain many accurate realities and are therefore as unique as numerous photographs.

With the help of his translator, Gusinde became acquainted with the languages ​​of the Indians, about which Charles Darwin said - alas! so dismissive. In reality, the languages ​​were incredibly rich - this applies to all three languages. With amazing imagination, the Indians managed to convey what was happening in the world around them, their own feelings and abstract ideas in the form of metaphors.

For the state of mental depression of the Yaman, for example, they used a word that meant the most painful period in the life of a crab, when it had already shed its old shell, but the new one had not yet grown. The concept of “adulterer” was suggested to them by the falcon, which, having found a victim, hovers motionless over it. The concept of “wrinkled skin” coincided with the name of an old shell, and “hiccup” with the name of a blockage of trees that blocked the path.

The Fuegians were able to express the subtlest nuances of the life of nature and man. Thus, “iya” meant “to tie a boat to a thicket of brown algae”, “windows” “to sleep in a moving boat.” Completely different words were used to describe concepts such as “sleeping in a hut,” “sleeping on the shore,” or “sleeping with a woman.” The word "ukomona" meant "throwing a spear at a school of fish without aiming at any of them." As for their self-name “yamana”, this word meant “live, breathe, be happy.”

On that March day in 1923, Gusinde said goodbye to the 60 surviving Yamana people. Although the governments of Chile and Argentina put an end to the extermination of the Indians, the deadly influence of alcohol and diseases brought by visitors could no longer be contained. At the beginning of the forties, only about a hundred Indians remained on Tierra del Fuego.

Gusinde's ethnographic interest in primitive peoples and after he returned to Europe did not fade away, the researcher made more trips to the pygmies in the Congo, to the Bushmen in the Kalahari, to the Indians of Venezuela and the Papuans of New Guinea. He published over 200 scientific papers, gave lectures on the radio, and taught at universities in Japan and the USA.

Martin Gusinde died at the age of 82 in 1969 in Austria. And eight years later, old Felipe R. Alvarez, the last purebred Yamana Indian, died on Tierra del Fuego.

Based on materials from foreign press, prepared by A. VOLKOV Photo from Geo magazine

The laws of the Yamana tribe announced to young men during initiation and written down by Martin Gusinde

Here are some of them:

— When many guests come to your site and you cannot give gifts to everyone, think first about strangers; What's left, give it to family and friends.
When you find yourself with several people in the land where you were born, and they want to settle down for the night, give up the safest place to those who have not been here. Be content with a worse place yourself. Don’t think: why should I care if strangers lose their boat?
If you are lucky on a hunt, let others join you. Moreover: show them good places, where there are many seals, which will not be difficult to catch there.
When you approach the fire, sit down with dignity, tucking your legs under you. Look at everyone gathered with friendliness. Don't pay attention to any one of them; Don't turn your back on anyone. Don't visit too often.
If you are offered accommodation for the night, stay. Help people in their troubles. Nobody will ask you for help. But look, maybe they don’t have enough water or firewood, or maybe the snow in front of the entrance hasn’t been cleared away. Get to work. Such people are welcomed everywhere with joy.
Don’t immediately talk about what you heard. It is too easy to sow untruths. Then people will wonder who was the talker - then they will look for you.
When you find something, don’t say: it’s mine. After all, the owner may soon appear. Worth seeing him lost item in your hands, he will point others to you and say: here is a thief! The Yamana do not tolerate thieves.
If you meet a blind man on the road, go up to him and ask: where are you going? Perhaps you will find out that he is lost. Tell him immediately: you have lost your way. He will answer you gratefully: therefore, I am lost. Then ask him: where should I take you? He will say: I want to get to my place. Take him by the hand immediately and lead him away.
If you kill someone out of anger or recklessness, do not try to escape. Find the strength to endure everything that follows, do not force your relatives to answer for what you have done.
Never forget these instructions. If you stick to them, everything will go well, people will be happy with you; they will say about you: you are a good person!

Vladimir Dergachev


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Tierra del Fuego was inhabited by Indian tribes six or more thousand years before the arrival of Europeans. They came from the north to the End of the World, where they had to either die or survive. They survived through willpower, adapting to local extreme conditions.
According to archaeological data, representatives of a tribe of sea hunters and gatherers Yaganov were the oldest inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego. Later, hunters came to the archipelago lakalufs And Selknam (she).

Rain, cold and piercing winds protected the land and the aborigines from “civilized” Europeans for a long time. In the northeastern part of Tierra del Fuego lived a tribe she. The West of Tierra del Fuego and the islands of the Western Patagonian archipelago were owned by the tribe alakaluf, and in the south they lived Yagana- the southernmost people on Earth.

Surprisingly, at the Edge of the World, on a harsh, uncomfortable land, riddled with burning winds, where in the summer the temperature does not rise above 10-15 degrees in the sun, Yagana And alakalufs They did not wear any clothes, they smeared their bodies with the fat of fur seals and fur seals. In the harsh climate of Tierra del Fuego, the aborigines lived practically naked and withstood strong Patagonian winds, rain and cold. Only during hurricane winds did the Indians throw capes made of animal skins over their backs. Normal body temperature Yaganov was slightly higher than that of an ordinary person and reached 38°. This phenomenon was studied by the English naturalist Charles Darwin, who took several Indians to London, but due to their inability to modern life these people began to die quite quickly, from ordinary diseases, as well as from wearing clothes.

Yagans, or rather mestizos, still live today in the south of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, including on the island of Navarino. In the first half of the 19th century, up to 3 thousand people read them. To date, approximately 1.6 thousand mestizos have survived. The native language is presumably spoken by several people. Formerly a traditional activity Yaganov— hunting for marine mammals, birds, guanacos, fishing, collecting shellfish and edible algae. Weapons - spears and harpoons with bone tips, slings, clubs, less often - bows and arrows with stone tips. Most of the year Yagans led a wandering lifestyle, moving along the coast on boats made of tree bark. Hut dwellings were built with a frame of branches and covered with turf, grass, algae and leaves. Food (meat, fish, eggs, shellfish) was cooked on hot stones or in ash. The water was stored in bark buckets and heated by dropping hot stones into it. Self-names Yaganov "Yamana" meant “to live, breathe, be happy.”

Last descendants of the Indians Yamana live on the island of Navarino in the village of Uquique, 2 km from the Chilean Puerto Williams. A representative of the tribe, Christina Calderon (born in 1928), together with her granddaughter and sister, wrote the memoirs “I Want to Tell You a Story” (2005), which collects Yagan fairy tales told to her by representatives of the older generations of the tribe.

Alakalufs were sea nomads, fishermen, shellfish catchers, hunters of sea animals (seals and otters), and sailed along the coast in canoes. Despite the small number (no more than five thousand) alakalufs Historically they were divided into about ten tribes. In 1881, eleven Indians were taken from Patagonia to Europe, where they were exhibited as animals in Paris in the Bois de Boulogne and in the Berlin Zoo. Of these, only four returned to Chile. According to the 2002 census, there remained 2,622 of these Indians (predominantly Métis) living on Wellington Island.

Selknam lived in the depths of the island of Isla Grande, hunted guanacos - an ungulate animal of the llama family of the camelid family. Guanaco meat was used as food by the aborigines; primitive clothing in the form of fur capes and warm conical hats was made from the skins. Selknam were the largest Indian community in the archipelago. The harsh natural conditions of the islands developed among the aborigines special methods of adaptation to an unfavorable climate and an amazing ability to survive in conditions of piercing rain, wind and severe cold. All Fuegians, as nomadic peoples, did not build permanent dwellings. Selknam Those who hunted guanacos made temporary shelters from poles and skins. Coastal Yamana And alakalufs They also built temporary shelters by canoeing.

The Fuegians spoke several unrelated languages. The Indians managed to convey their own feelings and what was happening in the world around them in the form of metaphors. From the endangered Yagan language, some words have been preserved as a kind of linguistic phenomenon, listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most capacious and difficult to translate word in the entire history of mankind. Mamihlapinatapai means “a look between two people that expresses the desire of each that the other will initiate something that both want, but neither wants to be the first.” Significant differences in language, lifestyle and ecological niches occupied prevented contacts.

The first Europeans to meet the natives of Tierra del Fuego were the sailors of Ferdinand Magellan's round-the-world expedition in 1519. In 1578, Francis Drake's English saw them, but did not make contact with them. At the end of 1774, during his second circumnavigation, the islands of Tierra del Fuego were visited by James Cook. The German naturalist Georg Forster, who accompanied him on his journey, gives in his notes detailed description local Indians: “They are small in stature, less than 5 feet 6 inches, with large thick heads, wide faces, very flattened noses and prominent cheekbones; the eyes are brown, but small and dull, the hair is black, completely straight, smeared with blubber and hanging around the head in wild tufts... All their miserable clothing consists of an old small seal skin, strengthened with a cord around the neck. Otherwise, they are completely naked and do not pay the slightest attention to what our decency and modesty do not allow. Their skin color is olive with a copper-red tint and many are diversified by stripes painted with red and white ocher... In general, their character was a strange mixture of stupidity, indifference and lethargy..."

In December 1823 - during the third expedition around the world on the sloop "Enterprise" - the Russian navigator Otto Kotzebue stopped off the coast of Tierra del Fuego, leaving a rather gloomy description local residents: “Man... needs the heat of the sun for the development of his body. Therefore, here he is nothing more than an animal... It is believed that their ancestors fled here, having been forced out of another, more convenient area. Here they have degraded to an animal state and now have no other needs other than maintaining their miserable existence in the most disgusting way...”

The Indians of Tierra del Fuego were “rediscovered” in 1832 by Charles Darwin, who landed on Tierra del Fuego during trip around the world on the Beagle. Darwin was also amazed by the primitive and primitive appearance of the aborigines: “The sight of the Fuegians sitting on a wild, abandoned shore made an indelible impression on me. An image appeared before my eyes - this is how our ancestors sat, once upon a time. These people were completely naked, their bodies were painted, their tangled hair hung below their shoulders, their mouths were open in amazement, and a threat lurked in their eyes...”

However, Darwin's compatriot, English explorer William Parker Snow, who visited Tierra del Fuego in 1855, came to completely different conclusions about the aborigines. Describing them unkempt appearance and primitive habits, Snow notes: “...many Fuegians living on the Eastern Islands have a pleasant and even attractive appearance. I understand that this goes against what Mr. Darwin described in his writings, but I am only talking about what I saw myself...” Later, the scientist discovered that the Aborigines “live in families.” Local women are modest, and mothers are very attached to their children.

A family of local Indians from Tierra del Fuego. Photograph from the late 19th century.


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The beginning of the colonial era in Tierra del Fuego put an end to the original culture of the local Indians. After Romanian adventurer Julius Popper discovered gold in Tierra del Fuego in 1886, a gold rush began. It took the colonialists a lot of effort to break the resistance of the local population. The final verdict on the Fuegians, especially Selknam, the sheep carried it out. At the end of the 19th century, a small flock of sheep taken from the Falkland Islands to Tierra del Fuego multiplied a few years later, and then it turned out that in a damp, cold climate, under the eternal winds, sheep grow unusually thick, long wool. As a result, the hunting grounds of the Indians began to be rapidly replaced by pastures. Indians who tried to hunt sheep were mercilessly killed.

When Europeans (Chileans and Argentines), sheep farmers and missionaries, began to explore Tierra del Fuego, along with them came European diseases, such as measles and smallpox, from which the Fuegians had no immunity.
A significant role in the extinction of the Aborigines was played by their traditional lack of the concept of private property. Hunters she (Selknam) suffered greatly from the sheep herds brought to the islands by the colonists, which intensively ate grass - the main food of the guanacos. After their disappearance, the Aborigines were forced to start hunting sheep, and thus came into conflict with the colonists, armed with firearms. As a result, the number of Selk'nam, so Yaganov decreased sharply. It is possible that the loss of the main sources of food also played a significant role in their extinction, since European and American sailors mastered the fishing of whales and seals.

Significant information about the material and spiritual culture of the Indian tribes of Tierra del Fuego is contained in the notes of the German missionary Martin Guzinde, published in 1925. In 1919 - 1923, he made four expeditions to the archipelago and visited all three Fuegian tribes and participated in their daily life.

***
King of Patagonia. In the 80s of the 19th century, a Frenchman Antoine de Tounin, a modest lawyer from provincial town, went to the End of the World to protect local aborigines from Europeans. In 1865, six Araucanian leaders entered into a military alliance against a common enemy, and Antoine de Tounin was proclaimed Aurelie I, King of Araucania. After a long persecution, the Chilean authorities caught the “king” and deported him to France.

In 1873, a stubborn Frenchman reappears in Patagonia, aka Aurélie I, King of Araucania, and now “of Patagonia,” who this time wants to set Argentina and Chile against each other. He remains on the Argentine side of the Andes and tries to cause border conflicts. But the Indians do not trust the strange white man, and he fails to establish contact with the remnants of the loyal Araucanians. He is soon captured by Argentine troops and sent back to France.

Two years later, he once again appears in South America in Buenos Aires and asks for permission to settle in the Andes, but is refused. In 1878, Antoine de Tounin dies in France with his royal decrees, banners and the order he established.

***
Contacts with Europeans who tried to instill “civilizational” values ​​in the Indians with the help of the sword and cross led to tragedy. The “enlightened” Europeans of the late 19th century destroyed the Indians of Patagonia, who bravely resisted for three centuries after the invasion of the conquistadors. White missionaries, one might say with their best intentions, “wrapped” the naked Indians in clothes. It often got wet, took a long time to dry, and became one of the sources of various diseases, along with donated European diseases, against which local population no immunity was developed. In private bandit armies, everyone was rewarded for having “a cut off ear or balls.” That’s why today’s memory of the genocide is touching. In many places in Patagonia you are invited to visit museums dedicated to carved Indians.

Sometimes we call people savages just because we don't understand them. And sometimes we don’t even try to understand - we are so passionate about our own affairs. Now Chile and Argentina are fighting for the right to save the Yamana Indians from extinction.

But if a hundred years ago snow indians If they weren’t considered savages, then they wouldn’t have to be saved. A hundred years ago the Yamana were a large and prosperous tribe.

Land of Cold Fire

The Yamana tribe literally lives at the edge of the world

These people have long lived in places where modern humanity feels uncomfortable. Tierra del Fuego is a real end of the world. Cold, harsh and unfriendly. At the height of summer it can snow, but the ocean does not freeze in winter only because of storms and currents. It is on Tierra del Fuego that the southernmost city in the world is located - the Chilean Puerto Williams, where all year round you can feel the icy breath of Antarctica. This is not even a city, but a village. Several families of Yamana Indians live out their lives there - and this is almost all who remain of an amazing people, but never understood by white people.
They either bask in the sun on rare fine days, or rummage through garbage containers, or beg soldiers for alcohol and cigarettes. These people no longer know how to live in harmony with nature, like their ancestors, but have never learned to use the benefits of civilization.
Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to reach the shores of Tierra del Fuego in 1520. The name of the open area was given by Spanish sailors. They walked through the strait at night, and on the shore they saw the flames of hundreds of fires. At that time, geographers believed that Tierra del Fuego was the northern tip of the continent, which was supposed to be located around the South Pole. In 1616, a Dutch expedition discovered Cape Horn and found out that Tierra del Fuego was an island. However, the area looked so unattractive that they decided to seriously explore it only in 1774. This was done by the Englishman Georg Forster. He described the Yamana as "an outlandish mixture of stupidity, indifference and idleness." However, the Europeans were in no hurry to develop the island. The disgusting climate interfered - in summer the air temperature there rarely rises above 15 degrees.
But this did not bother the Indians. The interior regions of Tierra del Fuego, covered with forest, were occupied by Selknam hunters. Alakaluf fishermen lived on the coast. The most worthless territory, according to Europeans, was occupied by the Yamana. They lived on numerous small, inaccessible islands, separated by narrow straits, spending most of their lives in their boats.

Snow Indians

It was the Yamana that amazed the Europeans the most, as they were completely unusual people. The tribe was divided into families. Each family's only property was a boat, skillfully made from pieces of bark. Families were created once and for life; the wedding was accompanied by magnificent, by Yamana standards, rituals. Children were raised individually in each family, right up to the initiation rite.
The Yamana did not wear any clothing, only throwing a piece of seal skin over their shoulders in the strongest winds. They were sea nomads and came ashore only to shelter from a strong storm or to collect edible roots and shells.
The whole family spent whole weeks on a boat, wandering between small islands. The Indians kept a small fire right in the boat. The older man was positioned at the bow, looking out for seals. The woman was supposed to be rowing at this time. In addition, her duties included diving for sea urchins, which were used as food. The division of labor was extremely clear; even only girls were taught to swim. And, for example, only boys can light and maintain a fire.
If necessary, new boats were made by the entire tribe. Hunting tools also belonged to all the Yamana, and after camping, each Indian took what came to hand. Only the coloring of bodies and faces was individual. In full dress, the men of the tribe looked absolutely fantastic.
The frost resistance of the Yaman amazed the imagination of Europeans. For weeks the Indians were piercingly
wind, rain and snow. They calmly dived into the icy water and slept on bare rocks. Travelers shuddered at the mere sight of an entire tribe of completely naked people, settling down to rest in a snow-covered meadow in ten-degree frost. It is no wonder that the aborigines of Tierra del Fuego were dubbed the snow Indians.

Mr Jamie Button

Mandatory coloring for tribal men

In the spring of 1830, several Indian boats approached one of the English ships. The Yamana did not know how to trade and only hoped to beg something from the Europeans. They absolutely did not know how to correlate the value of objects, which is why the transactions turned out to be extremely ridiculous. So they exchanged one Indian youth, later named Jemmy Button, for a mother-of-pearl button from a uniform, and two more for a can of canned food.
Three young Yamanas were brought to England. They had their hair cut according to the fashion of the time, dressed in European dress, and taught the language and manners. The Indians got used to it amazingly quickly: they learned to use cutlery, behave at the table and maintain small talk.
They also learned English very quickly. The British noted that the three Yamanas became exceptionally well-mannered, flexible and pleasant young men.
However, they did not like to talk about their life on Tierra del Fuego. The Europeans also failed to understand the Yamana language. It turned out to be too figurative and in structure was very different from European ones. With amazing imagination, the Indians managed to convey what was happening in the world around them, their own feelings and abstract ideas in the form of metaphors.
After a year's stay in England, the Yamana went home. The Indians were expected to be used as translators and propagandists of the “lifestyle of a civilized person.” However, the Europeans were disappointed. As soon as they found themselves in their familiar environment, the Indians immediately returned to their old way of life. But only now have they truly become savages. The acquired gloss instantly disappeared from them, but the charm and mystery characteristic of children of nature did not return. They simply forgot the behests of their ancestors.
For example, the Yamana had no theft at all, since there was no property. However, the natives who visited England quickly instilled in their fellow tribesmen a passion for acquisitiveness. Now they dragged what was in bad shape, fought over things, and broke everything they could into pieces so that everyone could get a piece.
Perhaps this is why the then young naturalist Charles Darwin, who participated in the expedition, spoke extremely contemptuously of the Yamana: “Poor, pitiful creatures... with ugly faces.” Their language seemed to the author of evolutionary theory “a clamor and noise that hardly deserves to be called articulate speech.”
Darwin's contempt sounded like a condemnation not only for the Yamana, but also for their neighbors, the Alakaluf and Selknam. Europeans just appreciated the fact that, due to the harsh climate of Tierra del Fuego, sheep grow excellent wool. They began to clear any suitable piece of land for pastures and paddocks. The Indians, naturally, disturbed everyone. Having no knowledge of private property, they hunted sheep, dismantled fences, and lit fires wherever necessary. In addition, although the Selknam were peace-loving, they knew how to stand up for themselves. Soon the authorities began offering a pound sterling for a pair of ears. The headhunters killed everyone indiscriminately: armed Selk'nam and harmless Yamana. From that moment on, the Indians of Tierra del Fuego were doomed. Moreover, in 1880 gold was found on their island. The prospectors cleared the area in just five years.

Last shots

If it were not for the German missionary Martin Gusinde, who made four expeditions to Tierra del Fuego in 1918-1924, there would be no memory left of the Yamana at all. Fortunately, he was quite professional in ethnography and photography. Gusinde became the only European whom the Yamana accepted into their tribe, taught the language and allowed to be present at all rituals.
Alas, by the time of the first expedition, the way of life of the Fuegians had already changed due to contacts with farmers and missionaries. In many families, ancient customs and myths were known only very fragmentarily. The Yamanas were not very fond of being photographed and did not immediately allow the curious stranger to take notes.
Gusinda was allowed to participate in the initiation rite - the transition from childhood to adulthood. Over the course of several months, the subjects were told the testaments of their ancestors, ethical principles, and were initiated into the practical skills of the tribe. They had to endure difficult trials. They spent a long time in a particularly uncomfortable position: their heads were bowed, their arms crossed on their chests, their knees tucked up - sometimes for ten days in a row they were not allowed to relax, stretch their legs, they even had to spend several hours of sleep in this position. But then they knew how to relax, even when crowded together on a tiny piece of land.
Gusinde proved that the Yamana language is not at all as primitive as it was thought before him. The Fuegians were able to express the subtlest nuances of the life of nature and man. Thus, “iya” meant “to tie a boat to a thicket of brown algae,” and “okon” meant “to sleep in a moving boat.” Completely different words were used to describe concepts such as “sleeping in a hut,” “sleeping on the shore,” or “sleeping with a woman.” As for their self-name - “yaman” - this word meant “to live”, “to breathe”, “to be happy”.
Returning to Europe, Gusinde published the results of his research, which told, albeit not completely, about the life and culture of the Yaman. The photographs he took are completely unique. In published materials, the German ethnographer did not agree with Darwin's point of view. The governments of Argentina and Chile tried to immediately stop the extermination of the Yamana, but it was too late. Of the eight thousand people, there were only a few hundred people left who were addicted to alcohol and had forgotten how to survive in harsh conditions.

When Magellan informed Charles V about the columns of smoke on big island, the king decided to give the latter the name Tierra del Fuego. It was smoke from the fires (the Indians called themselves “selk-nam” - people), who have lived here for more than 10 thousand years hunting guanacos. Soon after the first expedition (1879) to Tierra del Fuego, the state gave the local lands for sheep farming, thereby displacing the Indians. True, they quickly changed lines, because it is easier to catch a sheep than a fast guanaco. Later, gold was discovered in the center of the island, and the living space of the Indians was further reduced. So they gradually disappeared from the face of the earth.

Indians of Tierra del Fuego

“The sight of the Fuegians sitting on a wild, abandoned shore made an indelible impression on me. An image appeared before my eyes - this is how our ancestors sat long ago. These people were completely naked, their bodies were painted, tangled hair hung below their shoulders, their mouths were open in amazement, and a threat lurked in their eyes... I could have come from that brave monkey... or that old baboon... or from a savage , who takes pleasure in torturing his enemies and sacrifices the blood of animals. He kills babies without the slightest remorse, treats women as if they were slaves, he does not know what the rules of decency are and is completely dependent on absurd superstitions,” this is how Charles Darwin described the natives of Tierra del Fuego, who reached these places in 1832. ship "Beagle". The scientist was amazed by the primitive way of life of the savages and at first saw little humanity in them.

At the same time, the English explorer William Parker Snow, who visited Tierra del Fuego in 1855, described the local aborigines quite differently: “... many Fuegians living on eastern islands, have a pleasant and even attractive appearance. I understand that this goes against what Mr. Darwin described in his writings, but I am only talking about what I saw myself...” The scientist in his writings indicated that the Indians are familiar with the institution of family: “I witnessed manifestations of deep love and tenderness towards their children and towards each other.”

The way of life of the Indian tribes that once inhabited the territory of Tierra del Fuego, of course, could seem primitive and barbaric to any European of that time, nevertheless, they had their own culture, language and religion, which, unfortunately, remained poorly understood, because soon after the discovery of the archipelago, all its indigenous inhabitants died. Tough and hardy in relation to the harsh climate of their homeland, they found themselves helpless in the face of the diseases that the Europeans brought with them: measles and smallpox claimed the lives of thousands of natives. And what the disease did not do, the cruel treatment of the “new owners” of the earth completed. At the moment, there is not a single pure-blooded indigenous inhabitant of Tierra del Fuego: the last Indian of the She tribe died in 1974, and the last Yagan in 1999.

The Indians of Tierra del Fuego received the scientific name Fuegina. They are divided into several tribes: among which were the Canoe Indians (indigenas canoeros)-Yagans (Yamans) and alakaluf (kaveskar), who earned their living exclusively by fishing and gathering, Indians on foot (indios a pie)- she is Indians (selk-nam), hunted.