Selknam
The Selk'nam or onas are an Amerindian people, who lived until the beginning of the 20th century in the north and center of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fire, ("Kárwkènká" in the Selknam language) in the southern tip of the American continent, in Argentina and Chile.
Originally they were land nomads, hunters and gatherers. After a genocide in the early 20th century and a process of transculturation that operated for more than a century, the Selk'nam dispersed across the continent, a number of children were sold in mainland ports, and the language was extinct for a few decades. Fear, ridicule and the official statement that they were extinct led the Selk'nam to accept their invisibility, but in recent years the Selk'nam communities have begun a process of visibility, cultural recovery and revitalization of the tongue.
The 2010 National Population Census in Argentina revealed the existence of 2,761 people who recognized themselves as onas throughout the country, 294 of whom were in the province of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida and Islas del Atlántico Sur. Chilean census of 2017, 1,144 people recognized themselves as Selk'nam living in all regions of Chile.
Etymology
"Selknam", "selk'nam", "shelknam" or "dewak" is the name they received from the Tehuelches (tribes close and related to the Selknam), while the term "ona" comes from from the Yagan language.
The term selk'nam is derived from sheq'el nam, the ''sons of the earth arm'', for it is the common characteristic of the clans of the island.
The word "Ona" It comes from a term from the Yagans, who inhabited the south of the island, whose meaning refers to the North. Thus, they called the Big Island Ona-sin ("North-country"), and the Beagle Channel Ona-Shaga (" North-channel"). Lola Kiepja, who was considered "the last person to live in the Selk'nam tradition", believed that "ona" it was an English word, because the occasional English-speaking tourists who came to photograph her on the reserve where she lived used this word when talking to her or about her.
Origin
They are close relatives of the Aonikenk —also called Tehuelches or Patagones—, who lived in Patagonia, north of the Strait of Magellan. With them they had a remarkable physical resemblance, language and customs. The males were tall, with an average height of 1.80 m, muscular, corpulent, broad-shouldered, with a tanned complexion and great agility, which allowed them to succeed in hunting. Women were shorter and tended to gain weight. They arose in the northern sector of the island, present-day Chile, forcibly displacing the Haush to the southeast beginning in the 14th century.
I am convinced that the waves and aush came from the Tehuelches of Southern Patagonia, but the aush came to the Tierra del Fuego long before the waves (...) There was certainly much more difference between the aush and the ona between the latter and the language of the tehuelches. I think that at first the aush occupied the whole region, and they had to be content with the southeast tip, wet climate and plagued with swamps and thick matorals. It confirms my theory that in the land occupied by the waves there are names of places that have no meaning in your language; they are actually words that only have meaning in the aush language.
The Last Trust of Earth by Lucas Bridges (1948).
History
According to their own traditions and linguistic and geological evidence, the first Selk'nam —and the Haush closely related to them— were Tehuelches from southern Patagonia who would have settled on the Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego.
Selknam and Haush shared the island with two canoeing peoples (sea nomads): the Kawésqar and the Yagans, with very different physique, language and customs. The Selknam inhabited mainly the north and center of the island, while the Haush were located in the southeast, on the Miter peninsula at the time they had contact with Europeans. Although they were seen in 1520 by the Spaniards under Hernando de Magallanes when he discovered the strait that bears his name and saw the bonfires of the indigenous people that gave rise to the name of the territory, their first recorded personal contact with Europeans was that carried out by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. in 1580.
Subsequently, contacts continued sporadically until the early 1880s with the arrival of gold prospectors such as Julius Popper, large ranchers and Salesian priests, with land concessions granted by Argentina and Chile. By then it has been calculated that there was a population of between 4,000 and 5,000 Selknam. The sheep expansion meant the beginning of the Selknam resistance to colonization, destroying fences and stealing or killing sheep. The large ranches hired "Indian hunters," mostly British, to kill or capture the Indian families. Through an agreement with the Salesians, in the mid-1890s they began a policy of deportation to the missions, where exogenous diseases and especially tuberculosis ended most of the internees.
In 1883, cattle exploitation began with the concession by the Chilean government of the first ranches to individuals and in 1887 miners arrived in search of gold in the northern sector of the island. In 1888 a Salesian mission was established on Dawson Island with the purpose of evangelizing and civilizing the Indians. By 1891 the population had dwindled to no more than 2,000 people. In 1893, the Salesian Mission La Candelaria was established, in what would be the city of Río Grande from 1921, also with a desire to civilize and evangelize the indigenous population.
In 1895 the ranchers reached an agreement with the Salesian mission on Dawson Island, they would pay one pound sterling for each indigenous person confined in the mission. Over the years, more than 800 Selknam arrived on Dawson Island, most of them dying from the lifestyle change to sedentary lifestyle and disease. In 1974, Ángela Loij, who had known the nomadic way of life in her youth, died in the Argentine part of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, forming the Rafaela Ishton community .
On June 2, 1999, Virginia Choquintel, the last pure Selk'nam (daughter of a Selk'nam father and mother), died, although she did not grow up or live with the customs of her people.
Language
The Selk'nam language or Selk'nam chan, belongs to the Chon family that also includes the Tehuelche language and the Haush language, the latter closer to Selk' name than the tehuelche. Selk'nam-haush forms the southern branch of the Chon languages, languages spoken in Tierra del Fuego and in the areas of Patagonia around the Strait of Magellan. The relationships of the Chon family with other South American languages remain an open problem. Some authors consider that gününa këna would be related to the Chon languages, while others conjecture a relationship with the pano-takana family. Some well-known Selk'nam words clearly reveal the kinship with the other Chon languages:
- Sun: Krenn
- Moon: Kre'
- Night: Qawq'n
- Day: Kerren
- Man: Ch'oon
- Woman: Na'
- One: Only
- Two: Sooke
- Three: Sawken
- Four: Konè-sóokèy
- Five: Kessmarey
Culture
Territorial and social organization
The Selk'nam were divided into two large groups: the tribes from the northern plains of Tierra del Fuego, hunters of cururos and rheas, and those from the most mountainous area in the south of the island. The basis of the organization of the Selknam was the family, father, mother, children, but this was incorporated by relatives who occupied the same territory, a social unit called haruwenh. These units were established in many well-defined territories, whose borders were usually respected by the neighboring haruwenh.
They formed patrilineal clans (extended families that could have 3 or 4 generations) of 40 to 120 members with jurisdiction over a hunting territory. Men took wives from other clans. They were generally monogamous, although polygamy had begun to spread. Marriage with two or more sisters, or with a widow and her daughter, was common practice. The levirate was also applied, that is, the custom of inheriting the brother's widow.
Given the insular characteristics of the Fuegian territory, the space was organized according to its division, through the haruwenh that formed the basis of the social organization of the Selknam. Each haruwen was organized according to exogamous and patrilocal patrilineal lineages, and their boundaries were set by tradition.
Depending on their line of heritage, the selknam descended from a sky that represented with ideoplastic stripes, symbolizing birds, animals, fish, winds, seas or trees, considered as their ancient howen.Carlos Vega
Each haruwenh was a specific physical space, within which they obtained resources through hunting and gathering, which necessarily forced them to maintain a constant search for food that contributed to nomadic life. of the selknam. Each space was respected by the families and shared exceptionally due to special circumstances, such as hain (initiation ceremony) celebrations, food shortages, marriages, etc.
The nomadic life of the Selknam was similar to that of the hunters of Patagonia and the Pampas. Each member had their well-specified obligations: the man hunted and made the weapons, the woman, housework, child care, transported and installed the house. This culture had a wide spiritual world manifested in ceremonies such as the hain, an initiation ritual in which certain secrets tending to preserve their social order: patriarchy, were revealed to adolescents. If on their voyages they found a stranded whale or were in danger, they used smoke signals to communicate between the groups.
The house
The Selknam inhabited two types of temporary dwellings, called kawi, one semicircular in shape and the other in the shape of a cone. They measured approximately between 3.5 to 4.5 m. They were built by the women, in a depression in the ground or by digging between 25 to 40 cm and nailing sticks with which they formed a structure that they covered with animal skins sewn together. In the center was the fire and on the edges there were skins with insulating grasses underneath that were used for sleeping. Family groups moved through the territory in search of resources and it was the women who were also in charge of transporting the houses that were easy to carry and install.
Religion, rites and beliefs
The Onas celebrated male initiation rites during which the elders revealed tribal secrets to the young, or klóketen. Such an initiation rite was called h'ain; carried out around the age of 18, it gave young people the category of adults. The rites were based on a myth that narrated how in a mythical time women kept men dominated by disguising themselves as spirits and how Sol discovered the imposture and all the women, except his wife Luna, were killed and since then men have appropriated them. of deceit and continued to represent it in order to dominate the women. If many external observers may be surprised by body painting, eyewitnesses were even more surprised by the harsh tests -especially of physical resistance- to which the initiates were subjected.[citation required]
Temáukel was the name of a great supernatural entity that was considered to keep the world in order, although the creator deity of the world was called Kénos or Quénos. The sun and moon, which they called Krenn and Kreen, were of great importance to them; being the sun the husband of the moon, and who ran after her to punish her, but without reaching her. We can also mention K'aux, a mythological character who ensured order and the good attitudes of the members of each tribe, and who instilled each and every one of the laws in the Selknam.; and who together with his nephew Táiyin , defeated the cruel spirit Táita .
The "shamans," called xo'on, helped hunters and cured diseases. They received their power from the spirits of dead shamans, who appeared to them in dreams. The dead were buried superficially and the family left the place and burned their belongings since the deceased had to be forgotten on earth. The Selknam believed that after death they were taken to a heavenly judgment in the presence of all the gods.[citation needed] If they did not want the deceased to enter to his kingdom and enjoy eternal life (whether for misconduct or for lack of some law), they should be punished by taking him to hell, where the goddess of hell, chaos and bad attitudes, Xalpen, I was waiting for him to make him feel suffering and pain for eternity. The Selknam also believed that the goddess Xalpen resorted to her warrior gods, the Shoort , to carry out their plans of chaos and destruction.
Clothing
The Selknam covered themselves with a cape, which sometimes could be made of guanaco, fox or cururo, as well as for footwear, which covered them from the neck to the knees. they called chonhkoli. Under this cloak, the men wore no other clothing and the women wore a garment to cover their genitals. They wore moccasins, footwear made from the skin of the guanaco's limbs, sewn with the hair out. During the hunt, men used to wear a triangle of guanaco skin tied to their foreheads, for magical purposes.
Body painting was very important in the hain ceremony and face painting was used in everyday life. The use of body paint had a double purpose: on the one hand, it protected the body from the rigors of the weather and, on the other, it was an ornament that reflected a state of mind.
Food
The Selknam fed on birds, guanacos, and tucutucus, which the inhabitants of coastal Haruwen supplemented with the collection of marine products, such as shellfish found on the beach or a stranded whale; and wild fruits such as calafate and chaura.
The search for food meant everyday life. Finding food was the task of the men, who became skilled in the use of the bow and arrow, necessary to hunt the elusive guanaco. Since they always had to be on the lookout, the women took care of the house, ate shellfish if hunger forced them to do so, and, during the transfers, loaded the tents in leather bags and rush baskets, along with the utensils and the children who had not yet died. they walked.
Tools
The Selknam made tools out of stone, bone, and wood. His main weapon was the bow and arrow. They also used the sling and the harpoon. There are indications that as early as 6000 B.C. In C. Selknam hunters used bolas to hunt and tools to handle food.
Selkinam genocide in Tierra del Fuego
When the first settlers set foot on the Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego, they committed an extermination campaign, dying in just 20 years most of the natives. This was caused to a large extent by the groups of "Indian hunters" formed by Argentines and foreigners at the service of these who carried out extermination expeditions.
The Selk'nam Hunters
Julio Popper had several confrontations with the Selknam, and was photographed with the "collected pieces". English, Scottish, Irish and Italian foremen and laborers, were the "selk'nam hunters" that like Mac Lennan or & # 34; red pig & # 34;, administrator of the ranches of José Menéndez Menéndez, his employer, they set the price of one pound for testicles and breasts and half a pound for each child's ear. Another testimony referring to the aborigines who drowned between the tide and the rifles in Cabo Peña says:
Those made them kill colorful Chancho, Mc Lennan the real name, administrator another, there's three, Sam Ishlop and Stewart, some badger out there. That I know, that more or less I know them for my mom who named them all... and there are several more that I don't remember."Federico Echelaite or Echeline, of mother Ona and Norwegian father, died in 1980 at the age of 75; transcript of the film The Onas, Life and Death in the Land of FireA. Montes, A. Chapman and J. Prelorán.
Of the 4,000 of 1880, barely 500 remained by 1905. By then the killing had almost stopped. The few that remained later succumbed to the introduced diseases.
Your modern presence
By the 1980s there were about 9 people who had experienced nomadic life: Pacheco, Francisco Minkiol —born in 1916 in Río Gallegos—, Federico Echelaine —born in 1905—, Luis Garibaldi Honte —90 years old, born in the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego—, Segundo Arteaga and Rafaela Ishton Martínez. Anne Chapman also cites Rosaria Imperial and Alfredo Rupatini. The degree of knowledge of their language varied in each case, although probably by the second decade of the 21st century there will be no one alive who speaks this language as a native speaker.
On December 12, 1996, the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs of Argentina recognized the legal status of the Rafaela lshton Indigenous Community of Ushuaia, belonging to the Selk'nam or Ona people. In 1999 Virginia Choquintel died and in her honor the Rio Grande History Museum is baptized in her name. The Complementary Survey of Indigenous Peoples (ECPI) 2004-2005, complementary to the National Census of Population, Households and Housing of Argentina 2001, gave as a result that 696 people were recognized and/or descended in the first generation of the Ona people in Argentina (none residing in indigenous communities), of which 391 lived in the province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands; 114 in the City of Buenos Aires and 24 parties in Greater Buenos Aires; and 191 in the rest of the country.
The 2010 National Population Census in Argentina revealed the existence of 2,761 people who recognized themselves as onas throughout the country, 294 of whom were in the province of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida and Islas del Atlántico Sur.
In Chile, the Covadonga Ona Community was founded in 2012, legally recognized as the Selk'nam Chile Corporation in 2015, which requested the recognition of the town by the State in 2020. Its objective is to "bring together the members of the Selknam people, revitalize culture, strengthen the language, customs, ceremonies and create collaborative alliances with other vulnerable peoples". In the capital Santiago, the Selknam Rugby team was formed as a tribute in 2019.
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