Chonos
Chonos is the generic name used to designate the nomadic indigenous groups that inhabited the islands and channels between the southern Chiloé archipelago and the Taitao peninsula in southern Chile, from prehistoric times to the late 18th century or more recent times. They were nomads and their main activity was the hunting of sea lions, fishing, carried out by the men, and the gathering of algae and shellfish, carried out by the women; they also bred dogs and wove coarse cloths with their hair. There is discussion about the ethnic homogeneity of these groups and their relationship with the Alacalufes or Kawésqar from further south.
History
There are few data about the groups grouped under the name of “chonos”, according to the definition coined by John Cooper in 1917 and followed by later authors. The testimonies of the explorers and priests of the colonial era speak of different "nations" that inhabited the territory of the canals, but there is no certainty of the real number or distinctive characteristics of these groups.
The traces of human settlement found in the area of the Patagonian channels date up to 7,500 years on Navarino Island and about 6,100 years on the north of Chiloé Island, extremes that were not inhabited by the Chonos in historical times. Researchers have not reached a consensus on the direction that the population followed and the way in which adaptation to maritime life occurred.
By the middle of the 16th century, the northern area of Chiloé was populated by a Mapuche-speaking horticulturist and fishermen people who are known in historiography as huilliche or cunco and who are believed to have arrived in the area from the mainland a few centuries before; to the south of these, on the southeastern coast of Chiloé, were the so-called payos, possibly canoeists acculturated by the former and partly displaced to the south. On the Guaitecas islands and the Chonos archipelago, between 44° and 48° S, lived the groups known as chonos in colonial times, who moved continuously through the territory and lived by hunting and gathering. in addition to occasionally practicing the incipient cultivation of potatoes. In the southern part of this area, past the Taitao peninsula, there were other groups, known by different names by chroniclers, which for Cooper can also be considered "chonos" given the uncertainty of their characteristics and the similarity of their ways of life.
Spanish conquistadors began exploring the canal zone in the 1550s, and the first expedition to come into contact with the indigenous people of the area was that of Francisco de Ulloa in 1553, during his voyage to the Strait of Magellan. In the chronicle of his expedition, it is stated that they arrived at an archipelago called Los Chonos and that further south they had a confrontation with the natives.
In 1557 a Spanish expedition under the command of Juan Ladrillero traveled to the Strait of Magellan and the chronicle of the voyage includes descriptions of the indigenous people of the canals, who are identified by the name of "huillis".
During the second half of the 16th century, the conquest of Chiloé began and the conquerors received encomienda lands and indigenous people, one of which included the “guaitecos” indigenous people. However, it is assumed that these assignments could not be made effective because it was difficult to reach the places where these indigenous people resided.
The first known mention of the Chonos under that name dates from 1609, when the Jesuit priest Juan Bautista Ferrufino refers to the Chonos archipelago and relates that he wrote a catechism in the language of these indigenous people, which according to his Apparently it was very different and more difficult than the Mapudungun of the Huilliches.
The Jesuits residing in Castro made an expedition to the Guaitecas Islands in 1612, encouraged by their successes with the Huilliches of Chiloé and because a Chono cacique invited them to visit them and to preach among his people. On this trip and on subsequent visits they built churches and trained indigenous prosecutors to maintain the cult the rest of the time. The priests were busy with their missions in Chiloé and made only sporadic visits to the Guaitecas islands, finally stopping them around 1630.
After this period of attempted Spanish rapprochement with the Chonos, they were the ones who began to go to Chiloé, mainly in search of women and objects made of metal and others that they could obtain from the assault on indigenous and Spanish homes in the islands furthest from the reach of the colonial authorities. These raids could rarely be stopped or punished, but in retaliation the Spanish did the same on the Chono islands, and through Malocas raids returned prisoners who were used as slaves and who often did not live long because of the change in diet.
In 1675, the account made by the Chono Cristóbal Talquipillán about the existence of English settlements south of Chiloé caused news and alarm in Chiloé (and later in Lima and the Spanish court). The viceroy of Peru sent a reconnaissance expedition and prepared a fleet of twelve ships to expel the English, but it was only a lie.
In 1710, a group of 166 chonos of all ages showed up at Fort San Miguel de Calbuco and declared that they wanted peace and to live among the Spanish. They received the Chonos with great joy and surprise, in view of the previous hostilities, and they took measures so that they would stay and adopt Christianity. During the following years, families continued to arrive in the area, reaching around 600 people, which according to modern estimates would have been almost the entire population. They were exempted from serving the Spanish as "neophytes" and were given Guar Island, where in 1717 a Jesuit mission was established, attended by priests from Castro.
In Guar they were continually harassed by larch cutters who went to extract wood to Melipulli (current Puerto Montt) and soon all but four families scattered across the inland sea of Chiloé and resumed their nomadism. In view of the fact that a significant number settled in Quiapu, one of the neighboring islands of Quinchao, the mission moved to Chequián, at the end of the latter. However, the Chonos continued to move, and while some returned to Guar, others settled in points as diverse as Calbuco, Chaulinec, the exit of the Chacao channel or near Guafo Island, and the missionaries considered abandoning Chequián and creating a new one. mission in Cailín.
At that time, the colonial authorities considered it a difficult task to get the Chonos to become Christian and sedentary and considered them aloof, hostile and seditious, among other adjectives related to the Chono reluctance to settle in one place and follow the customs Spanish.
The mission of Cailín was finally established in 1764, it also included the islands of Chaulinec and Apiao and the main resident indigenous group were the so-called caucahués, southern neighbors of the chonos and considered by the missionaries as more tractable and interested in adoption of European culture.
During the rest of the 18th century they continued to live in a semi-nomadic way, but little by little the importance of agriculture in their way of life grew. They and the other indigenous canoeists from Cailín were the only ones who understood whaling and traded whale oil for flour and other products. Likewise, the chronicles of the time speak of a reduction in the number of chonos due to the shortage of women, attributed to the practice of diving that would have reduced their life expectancy.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the Chonos people are considered to have disappeared, having mixed with the other canoeists in Cailín and most of the men having married Huilliche women, so that their descendants adopted the way of life common to the Hispanic-Huilliche population of Chiloé.
During the 19th century there are sporadic reports of indigenous canoeists identified as Chonos and in the 20th century a Kawésqar man claimed to have had encounters with them.
In 2006 an expedition was organized that set out into the unexplored interior of the Taitao Peninsula in search of archaeological remains and Chonos that might have survived without contact with the outside world in the last two centuries.
Genetic studies carried out in Chiloé indicate that the population of Laitec Island presents genetic markers that are different from those of other more northerly populations of Chiloé, and similar to those of Fuegian peoples, which could be an indicator of Chono ancestry.
Culture
Like the Huilliches of the Chacao channel, they had three-board boats called dalcas and developed the use of the anchor, built with stones and wood. They navigated the channels and could even have reached the Gulf of Sorrows.
When they were on land they inhabited small frames of sticks covered with hides, or else they lived in caves. They remained in small bands, however their main social organization was the family.
Their diet was based on what they could get from the sea: shellfish, fish, algae, and sea lion and whale meat. At the beginning of the 17th century they occasionally practiced the cultivation of potatoes and some grain and later, after contact with the missionaries and the settlement in Chiloé, they began to adopt more the practice of agriculture. They made spears, clubs, wooden, bone and flint hooks and vegetable fiber nets. Their clothing apparently consisted of loincloths made of some marine algae and they covered their torso with layers of leather or woven from dog hair. They also sometimes wore a hat and painted their faces with red, black or white colors.
They developed magical rites and had taboos such as not looking at a flock of parrots in flight or not throwing the shells of the shellfish they ate into the sea. The bodies of the dead were generally left in caves.
The Chono language, of which few records remain, seems to have been related to Kawésqar and it is postulated that it could be a dialect of it.