Yámana

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Monument to the Yámana in Ushuaia
Distribution of indigenous people in southern Patagonia
Group of Yámana around 1882

The Yámana tribe (also: Yagan or Yaghan , the name preferred by the living descendants themselves because it is gender-neutral) is one of the four ethnic groups who settled as water nomads on Tierra del Fuego until the beginning of the 20th century . Just like the other indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego, the Haush , Selk'nam and Kawesqar (Halakwúlup), who are all counted among the Patagonians , they were almost completely exterminated in the course of the settlement by white settlers at the beginning of the 20th century.

Traditional religion

The Yamana believed in a Supreme Being , which, however, no creator was, but he had given to the people, plants and animals living (→ culture hero ) , and they worshiped this high god Vatauineva ( "the old, unchanging, eternal") or Temaukl to . As lord of life and death, he stood above all spirits and punished misdeeds, usually with an early death. They therefore prayed to him constantly, but victims were unknown. The initiation of the young people was central to them. They also knew two pairs of twins to bring culture to life. Belief in nature spirits was also widespread. The concept of the hereafter is unclear. Corpses were mostly cremated.

history

The Yámana settled as sea nomads along the Beagle Channel and the neighboring channels from the Brecknock Peninsula to the Wollaston Islands near Cape Horn . Similar to the other water nomadic ethnic group living further to the west, the Kawesqar , the canoe was also the center of their lives: in them the families transported all their possessions, and a fireplace was also taken from one resting place to another. These canoes were made from the bark of the lenga tree ( Nothofagus pumilio ). When they camped on land, the Yámana lived in low huts made from tree branches. In the east of the settlement area mainly a conical hut was built, in the west Gusinde mainly observed dome-shaped huts (cf. Gusinde 1937, 371–377). Depending on the season, these huts changed their shape due to the different weather conditions. For centuries, the Yámana camped at preferred camp sites that were surrounded by mountains of broken mussels. While the men were responsible for the hunt, the women dived in the ice-cold water for mussels and crabs.

In 1832 the natives of Tierra del Fuego greeted the sailor “ HMS Beagle ” with Charles Darwin on board

The first Europeans to encounter the Yámana were the sailors of a Dutch expedition that surfaced near Cape Horn in 1624 , but it wasn't until the advent of speed sailors and whaling at the end of the 18th century that regular contacts between the Europeans and the Yámana. The four Yámana who were abducted to England in the course of the expedition of Parker King and Robert FitzRoy in the first half of the 19th century became known in Europe as Jemmy Button , Fuegia Basket , Boat Memory and York Minster .

Regular contacts only arose in the second half of the 18th century, for example through the missionary efforts of the South American Missionary Society . When the first settlers arrived around 1884, however, a measles epidemic broke out, killing almost half of the Yámana, estimated at 1,000 people. Likewise, the clothing given to the Indians by missionaries, especially the South American Missionary Society, and from 1887 also the order of the Salesians of Don Bosco , contributed to the spread of the epidemic. The now forced sedentary lifestyle and the change in diet (from primarily animal fats to vegetable products) exacerbated the poor health of the survivors ( scrofula , pneumonia and tuberculosis). As a result, around 1911 there were only about 100 Yámana left. They settled in the bay of Mejillones at the beginning of the 20th century. There they were stopped by the Chilean government with the establishment of the military station and village of Puerto Williams in 1953 to move to Ukika, east of Puerto Williams. The Mejillones cemetery has been declared a cultural heritage. Burials are prohibited there. Their livelihoods continued to be fishing and fishing for king crabs. The last Yámana, Rosa Yagan Yagan, who still followed the original lifestyle relatively strongly, died in 1983. In 1985 there were eight Yámana left. Today descendants of five different tribal mothers and fathers still live in Ukika and Puerto Williams, but they are linked to different cultural origins through marriage. In addition to the representative Cristina Calderón (* approx. 1938), Patricio Chiguay Calderón also has a limited command of the language.

Yaghan language

The Yaghan , also called Háusi Kúta , is one of the indigenous languages ​​of Tierra del Fuego. It was spoken by the Yagán. It is an isolated language , although some linguists have tried to associate it with Kawesqar and Chon . Yahgan was also spoken in a mission settlement on Keppel Island in the Falkland Islands until the end of the 19th century .

Decimation of the Yámana by disease

With the missionary work of the region from the Falkland Islands from the middle of the 19th century by Catholic and Anglican mission stations, the Yámana became victims of infectious diseases, which were mainly caused by germs that were spread through donated clothing. Tuberculosis was one of the common diseases that killed people well into the 20th century.

Chatwin showed how much the Yámana population was decimated:

year 1834 1880 1888 1889 1908 1924
Residents 3000 1200 800 400 170 50

literature

  • Barth, Christine / Chapman, Anne / Legoupil, Dominique / Palma Behnke, Marisol, Gusinde, Martin (2014): Martin Gusinde: At the end of the world. Tierra del Fuego Indians. Ostfildern - Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag
  • Brüggemann, Anne / Gusinde, Martin (1989): The mourning look: Martin Gusindes photos of the last Tierra del Fuego Indians. Museum of Ethnology, Frankfurt am Main. - Frankfurt am Main: Museum of Ethnology
  • Anne Chapman et al .: Cap Horn. 1882-1882. Rencontre avec les indiens Yaghan, Éd. de la Martinière, Paris 1995 ISBN 2-7324-2173-1 (French)
  • Chapman, Anne MacKaye (2010): European encounters with the Yamana people of Cape Horn, before and after Darwin. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  • Chatwin, Bruce and Paul Theroux: Reunion with Patagonia, Fischer (Tb.), Frankfurt 1995 ISBN 3-596-11721-6
  • Martin Gusinde (1937): The Yamana. About the life and thinking of the water nomads at Cape Horn. Mödling near Vienna: Verlag Anthropos.
  • Christina Hofmann-Randall: The Tierra del Fuego Indians. Anthropological description of the first discoverers. In: Würzburger medical history reports 11, 1993, pp. 261–272.
  • Astrid Kaiser (2013): "Indians" in general teaching. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag
  • Koppers, Wilhelm: (1924) Among the Tierra del Fuego Indians. A research trip to the southernmost inhabitants of the world with M. Gusinde. Stuttgart: Strecker & Schröder. At: http://thomas-kunz.com/Feuerlandindianer.htm
  • Orquera, Luis Abel / Piana, Ernesto Luis: La vida material y social de los Yámana. Instituto Fueguino de Investigaciones cientificas. Buenos Aires: Eudaba 1999
  • Palma, Marisol (2007): image, materiality, reception. Meidenbauer publishing house
  • Rossi, Juan José (2006): Los Yámana. editorial Galerna
  • Kaiser, Astrid (2017): Relics of the Yámana Culture? Comparative study of children from Yámana families on Isla Navarino. In Anthropos, Vol. 112, H. 2, pp. 487-497

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ English-language museum brochure of the Martin Gusinde Museum in Puerto Williams, page 10.
  2. ↑ Hierzenberger: Faith of the Primordial Men, 2003, p. 120 f.
  3. ↑ SA Tokarev : Religion in the History of Nations. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1968. pp. 141-144.
  4. ↑ Chatwin / Theroux: Reunion with Patagonia. 1985.