WHERE THE SEAS CLASH: THE LAND OF THE ANCIENT HAUSH, TIERRA DEL
FUEGO
There are wide beaches at the two corner extremities
of Aguirre Bay. At the eastern end, toward Valentine Bay, broad
rolling hills covered with high grass and occasional clusters of
trees, lead gently to the shore where a rather wide river flows
into the sea. At the other extremity of the bay, the beach is also
wide but there it is bordered by shrub and forests. Here where the
Río Bomland flows into the sea, called Puerto Español
(Spanish Harbour) is sadly renowned. In 185l, a group of English
missionaries, Captain Allan Gardiner and his six companions died
of hunger there. It is the present site of a small cattle ranch
and formerly of a saw mill
Between the two sandy corners of the bay, there
are many short stretches of shore covered by rocks of all sizes,
isolated from one another by cliffs which jet out into the bay.
It took us almost twelve hours to walk from one end of the bay (sixteen
kilometres) to the other, partly because we had to wait for the
tide to fall when the coast line forced us in front of the cliffs
(or climb them as we did sometimes). The forest just above is almost
impenetrable except for a cattle trail but not being anxious to
encounter a bull, or his wife with child, face to face, we kept
to the coast.
We spent the fifth night in an abandoned shepherd's
hut on the bay. About noon the next day as we approached Spanish
Harbour, passing fences of cattle pens we heard various shots and
soon saw who had been the victim: a dog, bathed in the steaming
blood of its mortal wounds. As we came near a small wooden house
the remaining dogs barked but flocked around us wagging their tails,
looking up I saw a young worker leaning against the door-way of
the ranch house, staring at the five of us. When we got directly
in front of him, he asked: "Where did you come from?" One of us
replied: "Policarpo." He further questioned us: "You came across
the island?" The answer was: "No. We came around." He kept on asking
questions: "How long?". Reply: "This is the sixth day." Then he
said: "Come in and have a seat."
We entered and sat. Then he left telling us he
was going to round-up a lamb for a meal. He was very nice to us,
though wild on horseback and not so nice to his dogs nor his cattle
and less to the sheep. I understood why the wild cattle sometimes
get mad when they sight one of our species.
The following morning I picked up a tool (wedge)
made of whale bone but nothing else. This shore line must have been
good camping grounds for the Haush, though by now it has trodden
down by ranchers and cattle. Anyway, having no time to look around,
we thanked our host and departed. When the tide permitted, we forded
the river with no problem. Having climbed Montes Lucio Lopéz,
we enjoyed a view of the entire bay, all in tones of blue. Again
the crests were covered with slate. The strong wind and cold convinced
us follow the nearest stream down the mountains to camp that night
near the coast. Because of rain we were delayed and camped out another
night under trees, on the bogs. Rather early the following day we
arrived at Slogget Bay. Coming from the east, as we did, Slogget
Bay seems hardly to be a bay at all, rather only a gentle curve
in the coast. At the other end, however, high earth bluffs turn
the coast abruptly into the sea. It's a one-sided bay.
Coming along toward the bay, we encountered the
overseer of the Spanish Harbour ranch returning home on horseback
pulling along a pack horse. He told us that we could not cross the
river, Río Lopéz, where it flows into Slogget Bay,
where we were headed. He advised us to walk this side of the river,
up-stream, that might take some five hours, and to cross it there,
where the river was narrower and where "everyone" crossed it. I
tended to worry about his advice but Tino consoled me saying: "We'll
cross it somehow, without all that extra walk."
Arriving in Slogget Bay we saw that the river
was not so terribly wide but it was deep and flowing rapidly. Finally
my two guides maneuver a long tree trunk, into a large cluster of
floating dead wood near the opposite bank thus forming a bridge
over half the river which was resisting the current. Tino offered
me his hand, saying: "Do you dare?" As there was no alternative
I didn’t answer but climbed on the trunk and balancing, arrived
on solid ground. They quickly followed. All of except our fretful
dogs, shivering with indecision after several tries at swimming.
Shouting at them, we finally convinced them to try once again and
ran along the bank trying to keep up with them as they were carried
downstream. Thanks to our shouts of encouragement, their strength
and determination, they arrived, scrabbling up on the opposite shore.
Gleefully, we had all made it.
That night we slept on the kitchen floor in a
small wooden frame house on Slogget Bay. Its owners were absent
but knew we might be coming by. But even if they had not known,
they would still have left the kitchen door unlocked, matches, firewood,
a candle or oil lamp and some food, for the wayward traveler or
shepherd. Such is the custom of the owners and workers in the small
out-of-the-way sheep farms.
The next morning I walked along the beach in the
hope of finding some stone or bone material but soon realized that
almost all that part of the beach would be covered by the storm
tides. There was nothing to be seen around the house either but
certainly there were sites in the area which is particularly interesting
because it is in the vicinity of the southern limits between Haush
and Yámana territories. That morning, of the ninth day, we
looked over an ancient dredge. From a distance it resembled the
carcass of a dinosaur-like bird. Decades ago, in the twenties, I
was told, it had served to sift sand for the gold powder or nuggets
it might contain. The endeavour was not too profitable, I guessed,
though it had been a gold-miners dream come true, some eighty years
before when the famous or notorious Julian Popper had scavenged
the beach.
That day we walked about thirteen hours and arrived
at the end of our hike. Just before we were to approach the house
of the farm, Tino and Armando waited for me. We arrived at the door
of the owner's house, in Indian file, just as we had left ten days
earlier. There on a rocky coast near the entrance to Beagle Channel
is the sheep and cattle ranch of Cirilo Boscovich and his wife,
named Puerto Rancho (Ranch Harbour). They and their two workers
greeted us in a very friendly fashion. We remained there a day and
a half resting and conversing with our hosts. This had been Yahgan
territory. Mr. Boscovich had inherited this small farm from his
father who was one of the first White settlers on the island. If
no water transportation is available ( which it usually is not)
it is a five-day horseback ride from there to nearest town, Ushuaia.
We stayed there two days, resting and digging in a small shell
mound nearby where we found a three stone arrow or lance points,
and a bola stone.. There is certainly archaeology to be done here,
as in many areas along this coast.
We continued on borrowed horses to the next farm,
called Moat, where Tino had spent his childhood. There we were received
with special hospitality, by the owner, Martin Lawence, a son of
Reverend John Lawrence, companion of Thomas Bridges, the well-known
Anglican missionary. Martin commented that I was the first woman,
since Indian times to have made the hike around the tip of the island.
He generously offered to fly me back to Rio Grande, in his small
Cesna. Armando remained on the channel to work in one of the farms.
Tino returned home on horseback with his dogs, over the cordillera,
to Lake Fagnano.
Before leaving Tino and Armando told me they had
come with me to see the uninhabited area, where their Indian forefathers
had lived. They were pleased and so was I. We hadn’t needed
Tino’s dogs to save us, so they would have been grateful had
they known, in any event they seemed glad to be heading home.
NOTES
1. Although Martin Gusinde (Los
Indios de Tierra del Fuego: los Selk’nam vol.I: 114, 116-20,
1982) the principal source for the Selk'nam, was aware of certain
cultural differences between the Selk'nam and the Haush as well
as their distinct languages, he did not distinguish them in this
work. Back
2. I was able to make two preliminary
explorations on Staten Island (especially Crossley Bay on the north
coast of the island ) in 1982 and 1985 : see Chapman Isla de
los Estados en la Prehistoria. Primeros datos arquelogicos.
EUDEBA, Buenos Aires, 1987. Back
3. Betty J. Meggers, Prehistoric
America, Chicago 1972; Junius B. Bird " A Comparison
of South Chilean and Ecuatorian 'Fishtail' projectile Points." in
The Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers, no. 40, Berkeley,
CA, 1969; Annette Laming-Emperaire, "Missions Archéologiques
Françaises au Chili Austral et au Brésil Méridional."
In Journal de la Société des Amérianistes,
vol. 57: 77-100, 1968. Back
4. For details of these myths
see Chapman pp. 49-54 in the publication cited above in note 2.
Back
5. Gusinde (1982 II: 73-82)
spelt the word Pemaulk as Temáukel and interpreted it, in
a mythological context, as the name of the Supreme Being, "who",
he contended, existed in the minds of the Selk'nam. The sources
for these myths are from conversations , mostly recorded, with my
informants: Lola Kiepja, Angela Loij and Federico Echeuline as well
as Gusinde. Back
6. During ny first trip on horseback
( the last two weeks of 1969) from a sheep farm called Irigoyen
to the Policarpo farm (in Caleta Falsa) and beyond to Thetis bay,
I was accompanied by five volunteers, members of the Fifth Infantry
Brigade whose base was in Rio Grande, by Alfredo Rupatini and by
a member of the Rural Police of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. I wish
to express here my thanks for their collaboration as well as my
appreciation for the support given to me at the time by the commander
in chief, Captain Lucio S. Marcolini, stationed at the local headquarters
in the town of Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. I
am also grateful for the hospitality given to me and to all the
members of the expedition by the owners and workers of the farms
we passed on the route: Irigoyen, Maria Luisa and Policarpo. I am
likewise very grateful to Domingo Palma (a volonteer from the Fifth
Infrantry Brigade), who helped me a great deal phographing
and taking a few samples of artifacts in the sites we saw along
the coast from Irigoyen to Thetis Bay. Back
7. The
artifacts gathered and photographs taken during the first expedition
(in December 1969) were published by A. Chapman and Thomas R. Hester
(an archaeologist of the University of Texas at San Antonio described
and analyzed the artifacts as there were no Argentine archaeologists
in Tierra del Fuego at this time) . The article is entitled "New
Data on the Archaeology of the Haush, Tierra del Fuego." Journal
de la Société des Amérianistes vol. 62:
185-208,1973. All these artifacts were later sent to the Museo del
Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. The five skeletons excavated
and the skull found on the surface, during the second expediton
in Caleta Falsa, in early February 1970, were sent to the Department
of Archaeology of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Museum
of Natural History of La Plata. Photographs were taken of them in
the La Plata Museum shortly after their arrival and (in 1973) Dra.
Lili Cheves de Azeona began studying them. Back
POEM: LAMENT FOR THE INDIANS OF TIERRA DEL FUEGO
Where are the women who sang like
canaries? There were
so many women. Where are they now?
Lola Kiepja 1966, the year of
her death.
How to write, in a few lines, of a once powerful people? How to write
of the Selk'nam , of the Haush, of the Yámana,
of the Alakaluf?
They were a powerful people.
Thousands of years ago they reached the very end of the inhabitable
earth, no human had ever seen and settled there, to stay forever.
They wrenched sustenance from its turbulent seas, its dense forests,
its pampas flogged by glacial winds, its rocky shores.
Women, Yámana and Alakaluf, defied the waves surging up from
the Antarctic, rowing their bark canoes astride great whales, while
their men, poised in the prow with spears, struck the prey.
Men, Selk'nam and Haush, with bows and arrows, tracked the wild guanacos
through snow and tempests, while their women, burdened with animal
skins, hurried on to make camp and light the fires of the hearth.
Some were fierce, tough, tenacious enemies and gambled their lives
in skirmishes and feuds.
But they also loved.
They loved their islands, their great mountains whose peaks tower
over the glacial seas. They loved their forests where multicoloured
birds had found a home. They loved the firmament, their gods transformed
into stars and galaxies. They loved the merciless wind and the dark
throbbing waters for they too seemed supernatural.
And they sang.
They sang trusting to cure their sick-mourning when one died, to the
fearful moon in eclipse, to whales-beckoning them ashore and to their
sleeping children. They sang solemnly or amid laughter.
They have departed. Now only a few exist.
At the end of the nineteenth century of the Christian era, strange
men came to their islands, armed with steel bullets, poisons, and
lusts for riches. They "cleaned" the land of its people to exploit
it without love.
These strange men proclaimed: We are pioneers, civilizers, servants
of progress, constructors of nations, architects of the future.
The Indians defended themselves with their stone tipped arrows, fleeing
from the hoofs of mounted men sighting their rifles to slaughter them,
from the racing dogs, trained to devour them.
The Indians resisted, anguished, confused, determined to survive.
Some were shot, their ears and even their heads severed, or seduced
by liquor or persuaded to pray to a god proclaimed as their savior.
Others succumbed to strange diseases, suffered the terrible realization
that their children too were dying of these same diseases.
Later these strange men said, published and swore:
the Indians attacked us first, they robbed our sheep.
The Indians are untamable, savages, unfit for civilized life.
The Indians killed each other.
Anyway they were few in number to begin with.
Look at the atrocities committed yonder.
Here the missionaries cared for many.
You can't stop history.
Why all the fuss?
Some of the strangers attempted to save them. But in vain.
The curtain has fallen.
On the Day of the Race, wreaths are laid, speeches applauded.
Sheep farms, towns and streets; hotels, bars and beaches are named
for them , in their honor, as a homage.
Banners stamped with their silhouettes, statuettes in their native
head-dress, postcards showing them as they really were.
A choice for any pocket-book.
And the tourist is told: "We can't compete in the national and international
festivals with our native stuff. Our Indians didn't leave us any folklore
to speak of."
But wait. You can.
They did leave something for you and me:
When the full moon is gazing down over our islands and continents,
the wind will carry echoes of their chants.
Buenos Aires, July 1974: original in Spanish,
translated and modified by the author.
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