YAGHAN LANGUAGE, THE LAST BREATH OF A CULTURE

The Stones and The Grandma are spending their last days in Tierra del Fuego. The family is preparing their next travel to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Before leaving this awesome part of the planet, they have wanted to known more about the ancient inhabitants of these lands, about their culture and language and about the current situation of them. 

The family has travelled to Puerto Williams in the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego to visit Cristina Calderón, the last living full-blooded Yaghan person.

Every time the last speaker of a language dies, with him/her dies a whole culture and we lose an essential part of us. We must protect languages, we must protect minorities, we must be proud of ancient cultures, we must protect them and their peoples. They are the best heritage we can offer to the future generations -respect the past, to live the present and build the future.

The Yaghan, also called Yagán, Yahgan, Yámana, Yamana or Tequenica, are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southern Cone, who are regarded as the southernmost peoples in the world. Their traditional territory includes the islands south of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, extending their presence into Cape Horn.

In the 19th century, they were known as Fuegians by the English-speaking world, but the term is now avoided as it can refer to any of the several indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego. For instance, the Selk'nam inhabited the northeastern part of Tierra del Fuego.

Some are reputed to still speak the Yaghan language, also known as Yámana, which is considered to be a language isolate; however, most speak Spanish. As of 2017, Cristina Calderón, who lives in Chile territory, is known as the last full-blooded Yaghan and last native speaker of the Yaghan language.

More information: The World Atlas of Language Structures

The Yaghan were traditionally nomads and hunter-gatherers. They traveled by canoes between islands to collect food: the men hunted sea lions, while the women dove to collect shellfish.

Yaghans share a series of similarities with the more northern tribes of Chonos and Alacalufe. These are a traditional canoe-faring hunter-gatherers lifestyle as well as shared physical traits such as being of short stature, being long-headed (dolichocephalic) and having a low face. Despite similarities, their languages were completely different.

In 1871, Anglican missionaries Thomas Bridges and George Lewis established a mission at Tierra del Fuego, where they both raised their families. Bridges had learned the language starting when he lived on Keppel Island at the age of 17. Over more than a decade, he compiled a grammar and a 30,000-word dictionary of Yaghan-English.

Bridges' second son, Lucas Bridges, also learned the language and is one of the few Europeans to do so.

In his 1948 book, which was a history of that period, he writes that in Yaghan, their autonym or name for themselves was yamana, meaning person (though modern usage is man only, not woman) -the plural is yamali(m).

The name Yaghan (originally and correctly spelled Yahgan), was first used by his father Thomas Bridges from the name of their territory, Yahgashaga, or Yahga Strait. They called themselves Yahgashagalumoala meaning people from mountain valley channel -lum means from, -oala is a collective term for men, the singular being ua.

It was the name of the inhabitants of the Murray Channel area (Yahgashaga), from whom Thomas Bridges first learned the language.

Yagán (originally Yahgan, but also now spelled Yaghan, Jagan, Iakan), also known as Yámana, Háusi Kúta, and Yagankuta, is one of the indigenous languages of Tierra del Fuego, spoken by the Yaghan people. It is regarded as a language isolate, although some linguists have attempted to relate it to Kawésqar and Chono.

Yahgan was also spoken briefly on Keppel Island in the Falkland Islands at a missionary settlement.

Following the death of 84-year-old Emelinda Acuña (1921-October 12, 2005), only one native speaker remains, Cristina Calderón of Villa Ukika on Navarino Island, Chile. Calderón, often referred to as simply Abuela, is the sister-in-law of Acuña.

More information: BBC

In 2017, Chile's National Corporation of Indigenous Development convened a workshop to plan an educational curriculum in the Yagán language, and in June 2019 it plans to inaugurate a language nest in the community of Bajia Mejillones. The government is also funding the publication of a concise and illustrated dictionary of the Yagán language.

Despite the cold climate in which they lived, early Yaghan wore little to no clothing until after their extended contact with Europeans. They were able to survive the harsh climate because:

They kept warm by huddling around small fires when they could, including in their boats to stay warm. The name of Tierra del Fuego was based on the many fires seen by passing European explorers.

-They made use of rock formations to shelter from the elements.

-They covered themselves in animal grease.

-Over time, they had evolved significantly higher metabolisms than average humans, allowing them to generate more internal body heat.

-Their natural resting position was a deep squatting position, which reduced their surface area and helped to conserve heat.

The Yaghan may have been driven to this inhospitable area by enemies to the north. They were famed for their complete indifference to the cold weather of Tierra del Fuego. Although they had fire and small domed shelters, they routinely went about completely naked. Women swam in cold waters hunting for shellfish.

They often were observed to sleep in the open, completely unsheltered and unclothed, while Europeans shivered under blankets. A Chilean researcher claimed their average body temperature was warmer than a European's by at least one degree.

Mateo Martinic, in Crónica de las tierras del sur del canal Beagle, asserts that there were five groups under the Yahgan people: Wakimaala on both shores of the Beagle Channel from Yendegaia to Puerto Róbalo and at the Murray Channel; Utumaala from today Puerto Williams to Picton Island; Inalumaala at the Beagle Channel from Punta Divide to Brecknock; Ilalumaala in the south west islands, from Cook Bay to False Cape Horn; and Yeskumaala in the Islands around the Cape Horn.

The Yaghan established many temporary, but often reused, settlements within Tierra del Fuego. A significant Yaghan archaeological site from the Megalithic period has been found at Wulaia Bay

The Yaghan left strong impressions on all who encountered them, including Ferdinand Magellan, Charles Darwin, Francis Drake, James Cook, James Weddell and Julius Popper.

Portuguese explorer Fernão de Magalhães came upon the area around Tierra del Fuego in the early sixteenth century, but it was not until the 19th century that Europeans started to be interested in the zone and its peoples. The Yahgan were estimated to number 3,000 persons in the mid-19th century, when Europeans started colonizing the area.

More information: Linguistic Discovery

The British officer Robert FitzRoy was made captain of HMS Beagle in November 1828, and continued her first survey voyage. On the night following 28 January 1830 the ship's whaleboat was stolen by Fuegians, and over a month of fruitless searching to recover the boat he took guides and then prisoners who mostly escaped, eventually taking a man (renamed York Minster, estimated age 26) and a young girl (renamed Fuegia Basket, estimated age 9) hostage. A week later he took another youth hostage (renamed Boat Memory, estimated age 20) and on 11 May captured (estimated to be 14) Jemmy Button.

As it was not possible to easily put them ashore, he decided to civilise the savages. He taught them English... the plainer truths of Christianity... and the use of common tools and took them with the return of the Beagle to England.

Boat Memory died, but the others were considered civilised enough to be presented at court in London in the summer of 1831. On the famous second voyage of HMS Beagle, the three Fuegians were returned to their homeland along with a trainee missionary.

They impressed Charles Darwin with their behaviour, in startling contrast to the primitive Fuegians he met when the ship reached their native lands. He described his first meeting with the native Fuegians in the islands as being without exception the most curious and interesting spectacle I ever beheld: I could not have believed how wide was the difference between savage and civilised man: it is greater than between a wild and domesticated animal, in as much as in man there is a greater power of improvement.

In contrast, he said of the Yahgan Jemmy Button: It seems yet wonderful to me, when I think over all his many good qualities, that he should have been of the same race, and doubtless partaken of the same character, with the miserable, degraded savages whom we first met here.

The mission was set up for the three Fuegians. When the Beagle returned a year later, its crew found only Jemmy, and he had returned to his tribal ways. He readily still spoke English, assuring them that he had not the least wish to return to England and was happy and contented to live with his wife, in what the English thought a shockingly primitive manner. This encounter with the Fuegians had an important influence on Darwin's later scientific work.

The Yaghan were decimated by the endemic infectious diseases carried by Westerners. The English established missions at Keppel Island in the Falklands, and Ushuaia on Tierra del Fuego, in an effort to teach the natives English, Christianity, and farming.

The Yahgan suffered disruption of their habitat starting in the early-to-mid 19th century when European whalers and sealers depleted their most calorie-rich resources, forcing them to rely on mussels chopped from rocks, which provided many fewer calories for the effort needed to gather and process them, in the late 19th century when waves of immigrants came to the area for the gold rush and a boom in sheep farming.

They did not understand the British concept of property, and were hunted down by ranchers' militias for the offense of poaching sheep in their former territories.

In Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), Joshua Slocum wrote that when he sailed solo to Tierra del Fuego, European-Chileans warned him the Yaghan might rob and possibly kill him if he moored in a particular area, so he sprinkled tacks on the deck of his boat, the Spray.

In the 1920s, some Yahgan were resettled on Keppel Island in the Falkland Islands in an attempt to preserve the tribe, as described by E. Lucas Bridges in Uttermost Part of the Earth (1948), but they continued to die off. The second-to-last full-blooded Yaghan, Emelinda Acuña, died in 2005.

More information: With the Indians of Tierra del Fuego

As of 2017, the last full-blooded Yahgan was Abuela (grandmother) Cristina Calderón, who lives in Chilean territory. She is the last native speaker of the Yahgan language.

Cristina Calderón (born May 24, 1928 at Robalo, Puerto Williams on Navarino Island, Chile) is the last living full-blooded Yaghan person after the death of her 84 year-old sister Úrsula in 2005.

By 2004, Calderón (often referred to as simply Abuela, Spanish for grandmother) and her sister-in-law Emelinda Acuña were the only two remaining native speakers of the Yaghan language.

With her granddaughter Cristina Zárraga and her sister Úrsula Calderón she published a book of Yaghan stories called Hai Kur Mamashu Shis (I Want to Tell You a Story) in 2005. Zárraga, along with her husband Oliver Vogel, published Yagankuta, a dictionary and storybook of the Yaghan language, in 2010, based on interviews with Calderón.

She is still alive and residing in her hometown of Puerto Williams. She is the mother of ten children and grandmother to 19 as of 2017.

Cristina Calderón has been officially declared Illustrious Daughter of the Magallanes Region and Chilean Antarctica. She also has been recognized by the National Council of Culture and the Arts (Chile) as a Living Human Treasure in the framework of the Convention for the Safeguard of Immaterial Heritage, adopted by UNESCO in 2003. Likewise, she was nominated to be one of the fifty heroines in the celebration of the Bicentennial of Chile.

More information: Ancient Origins

 I used to speak it [Yaghan] with my sister
when she was still here
but my sister died.

Cristina Calderón

 

*Cristina Calderón died on 16 February 2022. Officially, Yaghan is an extinguished language.

DISCOVERING PARQUE NACIONAL DE TIERRA DEL FUEGO

Today, The Stones and The Grandma have visited one of the most incredible natural parks in the world, Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego. They have enjoyed nature, flora, fauna and they have been able to feel how wonderful is our planet.

Before visiting the park, the family has revised Present Perfect.

Parque Nacional de Tierra del Fuego is a national park on the Argentine part of the island of Tierra del Fuego, within Tierra del Fuego Province in the ecoregion of Patagonic Forest and Altos Andes, a part of the subantarctic forest. Established on 15 October 1960 under the Law 15.554 and expanded in 1966, it was the first shoreline national park to be established in Argentina.

The park has dramatic scenery, with waterfalls, forests, mountains and glaciers. Its 630 km2 include parts of the Fagnano and Roca lakes. The Senda Costera, connecting Ensenada Bay to Lapataia Bay on Lago Roca, is a popular hiking trail within the park. Forests of Antarctic beech, lenga beech and coihue in the lower elevations of the park are home to many animal species.

There are 20 species of terrestrial mammals, including the guanaco, Andean fox, North American beaver, European rabbit and muskrat. Among the 90 species of birds are the kelp goose, torrent duck, austral parakeet, Andean condor, blackish oystercatcher, and Magellanic oystercatcher.

The southernmost national park in Argentina, it is listed as an IUCN category II park. The park stretches 60 km north from the Beagle Channel along the Chilean border. Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego Province, is 11 km from the park.

More information: Already, Just, Yet

The park can be reached by car or by train. The southern terminus of the Pan-American Highway is located within the park, as is the El Parque station of the End of the World Train.

The park forms the southern portion of the subantarctic forest and is known for its biological richness.

The subantarctic forest vegetation is dominated by tree species of coihue, nires and lenga (a tree or shrub native to the Andes and also known as lenga beech) apart from a profusion of massbed. The flora that characterizes the Andino-Patagonico forests, the lenga, is well distributed over the mountain slopes above sea level to a height of 600 m. Above 600 m elevation, the flora consists of altoandina with small little bushes, plants en cojin and grasses.

IUCN has reported forests of southern beech species of Nothofagus pumilio, N. antarctica and N. betuloides. Other species include Berberis buxifolia, Embothrium coccineum, winter's bark Drimys winteri, and Crowberry, Empetrum rubrum and mosses.

Coihue de Magallanes is found in the wettest parts of the Beagle channel coast of the park. Lenga is found in the Pipo River Valley and some parts of southern mountain slopes and may be thickly set and reach great heights.

Chinese lantern, hemiparasite and Pande Indian or Llao Llao, which are fungus parasites, are found over the branches of the trees.

Cinnamon is also reported in many small forest areas of the park. Peat bogs extensively found in the park. These are made up of sphagnum moss and aquatic grasses in damp valleys where low temperatures and slow moving acidic waters prevent decomposition.

The flower varieties found are calafate, chaura and michay, which are orange coloured. Flag tree, strawberry devil and little ferns, yellow orchids and luzuriagas are seen in the understory of forest cover. Black bush, caulking, grill and Embothrium cocci with red tubular flowers are typically seen in the Beagle Channel coast and the western part of Lapataia Bay. Also found is the chocolate scented Nassauvia.

Settlers from Europe and North America introduced many species of animals into the area, such as the European rabbit, North American beaver, muskrat and gray fox, which rapidly proliferated and caused significant damage to the environment.

Avifauna includes three types of cauquenes (sheldgeese) namely, cauquen comun (upland goose or Magellan goose), cauquen real (ashy-headed goose) and caranca (kelp goose), found in open places and beaches.

Other birds include Patagonian woodpeckers, notably the spectacular Magellanic woodpecker, maca común, common maca, heron, pato creston (crested duck), duck overo, corn duck, eagle, southern carancho, chimango. Condors are seen flying on the peaks and valleys of Tierra del Fuego. It is also home the austral parakeet, Enicognathus ferrugineus, a species of parrot.

Aquafauna consists of scallop, moon snail, spiral tooth, few crustaceans like crabs and fishes such as sardines, Falkland sprat, Fueguina, merluza and Robalo de cola, jellyfish concentrations, steamer ducks and cormorants. Guanaco Lama guanicoe and South American sea lions are reported in the park.

Sea birds reported include petrels and albatrosses. Other notable fauna reported are several species of penguins, the South Andean deer or Huemul Hippocamelus bisulcus, and the southern river otter Lutra provocax.

The park experiences a temperate climate with frequent rain, fog and strong winds. Westerly winds over the sea maintain a uniform climate in the park. The average annual rainfall is 700 mm. Peak rainfall, snowfall at higher elevations, occurs from March through May; there is no dry season. Average temperatures are about 0 °C in winter and 10 °C in the summer.

More information: Turismo Ushuaia

The first Europeans who came to explore the southern tip of South America saw the campfires of the native inhabitants of the area, the Yaghan people, also called Yámana. The Spanish explorers hence named the area Tierra del Fuego, meaning land of fire in Spanish.

Humans inhabited Tierra del Fuego as far back as 10,000 years ago. The Yaghan people, living in the harsh environment, survived on the natural resources of the sea.

They lived on its beaches and made voyages into the sea in canoes made of lenga beech, hunted sea lions and collected shellfish. They lived in huts made of tree branches and trunks and clothed themselves with leather made from sea lion pelts. They smeared their body with the fat and grease of these animals to waterproof their skins.

The southern group of the Selk’nam, the Yaghan people (also known as Yámana), occupied what is now Ushuaia, living in continual conflict with the northern inhabitants of the island.

Wasti H. Stirling, an Anglican missionary, settled here in 1870 and started to convert Yaghan tribes, the natives, the original residents of the Beagle Channel.

During the 1880s, many gold prospectors came to Ushuaia, following rumors of large gold fields, which proved to be false.

Trouble for the Yaghan people began in 1880, when European missionaries entered the area.

European settlers brought diseases such as measles, causing a rapid and nearly complete extinction of the Yaghan people.

The Yaghan tribe was reduced in number from about 3,000 people in 1880 to less than 100 by the 1990s. Many of them were killed by European settlers' shoot exercises and deliberate poisoning to exploit the sea lions, the staple of the Yaghan diet. Following the death of 84-year-old Emelinda Acuña (1921-12 October 2005), only one native speaker remains, Cristina Calderón of Villa Ukika on Navarino Island, Chile.

More information: Beagle Project

A national park is not a playground.
It's a sanctuary for nature and for humans
who will accept nature on nature's own terms.

Michael Frome