Illustrated magazine by Vladimir Dergachev “Landscapes of life. The most "ancient" people on Earth (Aborigines of Australia). Tierra del Fuego
Vladimir Dergachev
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Tierra del Fuego for six or more millennia before the arrival of Europeans was inhabited by Indian tribes. They came from the north to the End of the World, where they were supposed to either die or survive. They survived by sheer willpower, adapting to local extreme conditions.
According to archaeological data, representatives of the tribe of sea hunters and gatherers Yaganov were the oldest inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego. Later, hunters came to the archipelago and lacalufs And Selknams (she).
Rain, cold and piercing wind for a long time protected the land and the natives from the "civilized" Europeans. In the northeastern part of Tierra del Fuego lived a tribe she. The tribe alakaluf, and in the south lived yagan- the most southern people of the Earth.
Surprisingly, at the End of the World on a harsh, uncomfortable land riddled with burning winds, where in summer the temperature does not rise above 10-15 degrees in the sun, yagan And alakalufs did not wear any clothes, smeared their body with the fat of fur seals and seals. In the harsh climate of Tierra del Fuego, the natives lived almost naked, steadfastly withstood the strong Patagonian winds, rain and cold. Only when hurricane wind The Indians threw animal skins on their backs. Normal body temperature for Yaganov was slightly higher than that of an ordinary person and reached 38 °. The study of this phenomenon was carried out by the English naturalist Charles Darwin, who took several Indians to London, but due to their inability to adapt to modern life, these people began to die rather quickly from ordinary diseases, as well as from wearing clothes.
Yagans, or rather, mestizos, and today they live in the south of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, including on the island of Navarino. In the first half of the 19th century, up to 3 thousand people read them. To date, approximately 1.6 thousand mestizos have survived. On mother tongue several people say. Formerly a traditional occupation Yaganov- hunting for marine mammals, birds, guanacos, fishing, collecting shellfish and edible algae. Weapons - spears and harpoons with bone tips, slings, clubs, less often - a bow and arrows with stone tips. Most of the year Yagans led a wandering lifestyle, moving along the coast in boats made of tree bark. Hut dwellings were built with a frame of branches and covered with turf, grass, algae and leaves. Food (meat, fish, eggs, shellfish) was cooked on hot stones or in ashes. Water was stored in buckets of bark, heated by lowering red-hot stones into it. Self-names yaganov "yamana" meant to live, breathe, be happy.
The last descendants of the Indians yamana live on the island of Navarino in the village of Uquique, 2 km from the Chilean Puerto Williams. Tribal representative Cristina Calderon (born 1928), together with her granddaughter and sister, wrote the memoirs “I Want to Tell You a Story” (2005), which collected Yaghan tales told to her by representatives of the older generations of the tribe.
Alacalufs were sea nomads, fishermen, fishermen of shellfish, hunters of sea animals (seals and otters), sailed along the coast in canoes. Despite small numbers(no more than five thousand) alakalufs historically divided into about ten tribes. In 1881, eleven Indians were taken from Patagonia to Europe, where they were exhibited as animals in Paris in the Bois de Boulogne and in the Berlin Zoo. Of these, only four returned to Chile. According to the 2002 census, there were 2,622 of these Indians (mostly mestizos) living on Wellington Island.
Selknams lived in the depths of Isla Grande, hunted guanaco - an ungulate animal of the genus of llamas of the camelid family. Guanaco meat was used by the natives for food, primitive clothing was made from the skins in the form of fur capes and warm conical hats. Selknams were the largest Indian community in the archipelago. The harsh natural conditions of the islands have developed among the natives special methods of adapting to an unfavorable climate and an amazing ability to survive in conditions of penetrating rain, wind and extreme cold. All Fuegians, as nomadic peoples, did not build permanent dwellings. Selknams, who hunted guanacos, made temporary dwellings for themselves from poles and skins. coastal yamana And alakalufs they also built temporary dwellings by canoeing.
The Fuegians spoke several unrelated languages. The Indians managed to convey their own feelings and what is happening in the world around them in the form of metaphors. From the endangered Yaghan language, some words have survived as a kind of linguistic phenomenon, listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most capacious and difficult to translate word in the history of mankind. Mamihlapinatapai means "a look between two people, which expresses the desire of each that the other will become the initiator of what both want, but neither wants to be the first." Significant differences in language, lifestyle, and ecological niches occupied prevented contacts.
The first Europeans to meet the natives of Tierra del Fuego in 1519 were sailors round the world expedition Ferdinand Magellan. In 1578 they were seen by the English of Francis Drake, but did not come into contact with them. At the end of 1774, during his second circumnavigation, the islands of Tierra del Fuego were visited by James Cook. The German naturalist Georg Forster, who accompanied him on his journey, gives a detailed description of the local Indians in his notes: “They are short, less than 5 feet 6 inches, with large thick heads, broad faces, very flattened noses, and prominent cheekbones; brown eyes, but small and dull, black hair, completely straight, smeared with blubber and hanging around the head in wild tufts ... All their miserable clothes consist of an old small sealskin, strengthened with a cord around the neck. Otherwise, they are completely naked and do not pay the slightest attention to what our decency and modesty does not allow. Their skin color is olive with a copper-red tint, and for many it varied with stripes applied with red and white ocher ... In general, their character was a strange mixture of stupidity, indifference and lethargy ... "
In December 1823 - during the third round-the-world expedition on the sloop "Enterprise" - the Russian navigator Otto Kotzebue stopped off the coast of Tierra del Fuego, leaving a rather gloomy description of the locals: “Man… needs the warmth of the sun for the development of his organism. Therefore, here he is nothing more than an animal ... It is believed that their ancestors fled here, having been forced out of another, more convenient area. Here they have degraded to an animal state and now have no other needs than to maintain their miserable existence in the most disgusting way ... ".
The Indians of Tierra del Fuego were rediscovered in 1832 by Charles Darwin, who landed on Tierra del Fuego during world travel on the Beagle. Darwin was also struck by the primeval and primitive appearance of the natives: “The sight of the Fuegians, sitting on a wild abandoned shore, made an indelible impression on me. An image appeared before my eyes - just like that, once upon a time, our ancestors sat. These people were completely naked, their bodies were painted, matted hair hung below their shoulders, their mouths opened in amazement, and a threat lurked in their eyes ... ".
However, Darwin's compatriot, English explorer William Parker Snow, who visited Tierra del Fuego in 1855, came to completely different conclusions about the natives. Describing their unkempt appearance and primitive habits, Snow notes: “... many Fuegians living on Eastern Islands, have a pleasant and even attractive appearance. I understand that this is contrary to what Mr. Darwin described in his writings, but I am only talking about what I saw myself ... ". Later, the scientist discovered that the natives "live in families." Local women are modest, and mothers are very attached to their children.
A family of local Indians from Tierra del Fuego. Photo from the end of the 19th century. 
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The beginning of the colonial era in Tierra del Fuego put an end to the original culture of the local Indians. After the Romanian adventurer Julius Popper found gold in Tierra del Fuego in 1886, the "gold rush" began. It took the colonialists a lot of effort to break the resistance of the local population. Final judgment on the Fuegians, especially Selknam, brought out the sheep. At the end of the 19th century, a small flock of sheep, taken from the Falkland Islands to Tierra del Fuego, multiplied a few years later, and then it turned out that in a damp, cold climate, under eternal winds, sheep grow unusually thick, long wool. As a result, the hunting grounds of the Indians began to be rapidly replaced by pastures. Indians who tried to hunt sheep were ruthlessly destroyed.
When Europeans (Chileans and Argentines), sheep breeders and missionaries, began to explore Tierra del Fuego, European diseases, such as measles and smallpox, came along with them, from which the Fuegians had no immunity.
A significant role in the extinction of the natives was played by their traditional lack of the concept of private property. Hunters she (Selknam) suffered greatly from the sheep herds brought to the islands by the colonists, who intensively ate grass - the main food of the guanaco. After their disappearance, the natives were forced to start hunting sheep, and thus came into conflict with the colonists armed with firearms. As a result, the number of Selknam, and Yaganov decreased sharply. It is possible that the loss of the main sources of food also played a significant role in their extinction, since European and American sailors mastered the whale and seal trade.
Significant information about the material and spiritual culture of the Indian tribes of Tierra del Fuego is contained in the notes of the German missionary Martin Guzinde, published in 1925. In 1919 - 1923, he made four expeditions to the archipelago and visited all three tribes of Fuegians, participated in them Everyday life.
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King Patagonian. In the 80s of the 19th century, the French Antoine de Thunin, humble lawyer from provincial town, went to the End of the World to protect the local natives from the Europeans. In 1865, six Araucanian chiefs entered into a military alliance against a common enemy, and Antoine de Tounin proclaimed Aurélie I, King of Araucan. The Chilean authorities, after a long persecution, caught the "king" and expelled him to France. 
In 1873, a stubborn Frenchman reappears in Patagonia, he is Aurelie I, King of Araucan, and now “and Patagonian”, who this time decides to set Argentina and Chile against each other. He remains on the Argentine side of the Andes and tries to cause border conflicts. But the Indians do not trust the strange white, and he fails to establish contact with the remnants of the faithful Araucanians. Soon he is captured by Argentine troops and sent back to France.
Two years later, he once again appears in South America in Buenos Aires and asks for permission to settle in the Andes, but he is refused. In 1878, Antoine de Tounin dies in France with his royal decrees, banners and the order he founded.
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Contacts with Europeans who tried to instill "civilizational" values in the Indians with the sword and cross led to tragedy. The "enlightened" Europeans of the late 19th century destroyed the Indians of Patagonia, who courageously resisted for three whole centuries after the invasion of the conquistadors. White missionaries, one might say from the best of their intentions, "packed" naked Indians in clothes. She often got wet, dried for a long time and became one of the sources of various diseases, along with donated European diseases, against which the local population did not develop immunity. In private bandit armies, everyone was rewarded for "cutting off an ear or balls." Therefore touches today's memory of the perfect genocide. In many parts of Patagonia you are invited to visit museums dedicated to carved Indians.
Aborigines of Australia, according to scientists, appeared on the continent at least 50,000 years ago. The settlement process took place during the last ice age from Southeast Asia, although someone thinks from India. Local natives are considered "prototypes" ancient man You can be convinced of this just by looking at a few photographs - huge, unusual modern man facial features, a languid look, a large disproportionate body.
The natives lived for themselves until the Europeans arrived at the end of the 18th century and began to fight for territory and water. During that period, a large part of the local population died, in addition, the conquerors brought "European" diseases that killed more than half of the local population.
As a result of the wars, many of the natives ended up on reservations and did not have civil rights. Only in 1967, the indigenous people were recognized as citizens, reservations disappeared, historical lands began to be given away, names were renamed, and art began to be paid attention to.
This civilization is considered the least studied and primitive currently existing on our planet, and scientists call the natives the most backward (naturally, from our point of view) people. Although, I will not hide, I would agree with them.
“Whites”, in the absence of their own culture, open art galleries, sell Aboriginal paintings for very immodest money (from 3,000 to 40,000 dollars), create workshops where you can come and paint a picture with the Aboriginals. The natives themselves rent out land, for example, the famous Uluru. Nowadays, modern Australian Aborigines make an impression, not only terrifying, but somehow introduces an entrance. Dressed in stretched Chinese T-shirts and pants, unkempt women, it's all repulsive. They are completely different, they go in crowds, from side to side, from store to store. In the cities they look very ridiculous, the locals try not to pay attention to them, it seems that even the latest immigrant from a foreign country will be closer to the Australian "white" citizens than the local native.
What are they doing now? It is difficult to say, the Australian state is now paying them sufficient benefits, which can be a good existence. You can often find a native drinking alcohol, or lounging in a park or spending the night in a dry river bed, (in Russian "homeless")
For the first time in my life, it was uncomfortable and scary for me to photograph someone, either their eyes were inadequate, or it seemed that such a colossus could simply hit with a fist. I photographed them mostly in secret, sometimes from the car. A couple of times they asked for money for a photo .. 20 dollars. To the question, “can I take a picture of you?” they answered that take a picture of him and pointed to a neighbor.
On a March afternoon in 1923, 60 Indians in boats landed on the shores of the Beagle Channel. It was late summer in Tierra del Fuego, the rain subsided a little, and the air warmed up to plus nine. Mile after mile, the Indians made their way through the labyrinth of islands and channels, only to see for the last time a friend, the only European whom they accepted into their tribe.
This man's name was Martin Gusinde, he was a German, originally from Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland). On the shore of the strait, he captured food and gifts. On that day, he said goodbye forever to the Yamana Indians and took the last pictures. At the last minute, he “shuddered, looking at this handful of people,” Martin wrote these words in his diary that evening; for four years he led it day by day.
The men standing before Martin were the few remaining of the Yamana tribe, who had inhabited the southern tip of America since prehistoric times. natural conditions these places seem to be directed against man: endless storms and snowfalls, eternal cold, but the Indians have adapted to them. No white man could compare to them in endurance. They had an unusually expressive language. And yet, and yet ... "A terrible fate counted last years their lives,” wrote Gusinde.
Martin Gusinde was fond of ethnography and photography. This successful combination made it possible to capture the daily life of the Indians, which he observed for several years. He knew that the hour of their death was approaching, and could not prevent it. He only tried to preserve in the memory of mankind their customs, way of life with his photographs, with his notes. In addition, he wanted one might say, alas, after the fact to change the bad reputation that has developed about them in Europe.
In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to sail from Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific through the strait later named after him, which separated the American continent and Tierra del Fuego. At night, the sailors of Magellan saw a lot of lights they were the fires of the Indians therefore he called this area Tierra del Fuego, Tierra del Fuego. Both he and subsequent navigators were convinced that the places they discovered were the outskirts of the legendary South Earth, a continent that was then believed to occupy the area around the South Pole.
It was not until 1616 that two Dutch captains rounded Cape Horn and established that Tierra del Fuego was an island. For a long time no one was interested in this abandoned piece of land, where it was always snowing or a hurricane raged; huge waves beat on its coast, and the land was inaccessible due to glaciers and forests overgrown with ferns. Only two centuries later did the Europeans become better acquainted with the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego.
The German naturalist Georg Forster, who found himself in Tierra del Fuego in 1774 with the expedition of James Cook, described the character of the Fuegians as "a strange mixture of stupidity, indifference and idleness." Even Charles Darwin half a century later called them "poor, miserable creatures ... with ugly faces."
Their language seemed to him "a scream and a noise that scarcely deserves to be called articulate speech." The disparaging opinion of the famous scientist rapped out in the minds of Europeans the appearance of the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego.
In 1881, the island was divided between Argentina and Chile. By that time, the sheep breeders had already driven the Indians out of their usual hunting grounds. Unfortunately for the Indians, gold was found in Tierra del Fuego, and prospectors soon invaded. The last genocide has begun American continent. The Indians interfered with everyone: they hunted sheep, not knowing what private property was, they took everything they liked in the camps of gold miners. In those years, scalp hunters received a pound sterling for each pair of ears cut off from slain Indians. The same natives who managed to escape from the thugs found themselves defenseless against the diseases introduced by Europeans - tuberculosis, measles. The survivors were finished off by alcohol, to which they quickly became addicted. Half a century later, when Martin Gusinde first came to Tierra del Fuego in 1919, the number of Indians was reduced from eight thousand to six hundred.
Martin was then 32 years old. He was a missionary, teaching at a private German school in Santiago. And in free time passionately engaged in ethnographic research. To do this, I had to take a vacation at my own expense. All to explore the far corners lost islands, Martin Gusinde spent a total of 22 months. In 1925 he returned to Europe and published his notes in three volumes. To date, his books remain the most extensive source of information about the life of the Fuegians.
The island was inhabited by three peoples. The tribe, who called themselves the Selknam, hunted and roamed the hinterland, following the paths along which the guanacos moved, main object their hunts. The Europeans called this tribe she. The most important part of their property was a bow and arrows, flint for striking fire and a thick cape made of guanaco skins. To save themselves from the cold, they rubbed their naked bodies with clay and guanaco fat. At night they slept in huts built of logs and moss, huddled closely against the smoldering fire.
In addition to them, sea nomads also lived on Tierra del Fuego: yaman (they are also called yagan) and halakvulups (in scientific literature alakalufs). Every day they sailed in boats through the labyrinths of straits and channels. The Alakalufs inhabited the western coast, the Yamana - numerous islets near Cape Horn. The whole family fit in the boat. In the forward part, with a harpoon in his hand, sat a husband, tensely looking out for seals. At the other end of the boat, the wife rowed continuously. In addition, her duty was to dive into the icy water for sea urchins, and in the evening to tie the boat near the shore therefore the islanders taught only girls to swim. Wind, dampness, cold even at sub-zero temperatures, the Indians remained completely naked. Do not consider as clothing a piece of seal skin the size of a handkerchief, with a belt. He was moved through the body to the most frozen places.
Due to the eternal cold and dampness, the sea nomads had to tirelessly keep the fire going. Every morning, dismantling their miserable windscreens, they carried wicker embers into the boat and fed the fire sparingly with moss and twigs until they landed on the shore in the evening.
Gusinde visited all three tribes. He lived with them in the camps, participated in their weddings and funerals, studied with a healer, and even withstood the rite of initiation. Anticipating that he was becoming the last eyewitness to perishing traditions, Gusinde, like a man possessed, wrote down all the details of what he saw.
First of all, it was necessary to overcome the fear of the Indians in front of the camera. He knew that the natives called him a "shadow catcher", and therefore he took pictures very carefully. Among the shots he made are rarely taken with a hidden camera. In most cases, the Indians being photographed were specially prepared for shooting, so that photographic portraits were obtained. Carefully choosing their ornaments, assuming an appropriate pose, the islanders peered with deep seriousness into the lens, which was to preserve the last memory of them.
Of all Gusinda's journeys, the fourth one, which lasted more than a year, turned out to be the most difficult. Four months of them he lived among her. He slept on brushwood, ate half-baked guanaco meat, washed himself in snow, and became completely lousy. Then the ethnographer spent two months in a labyrinth of islets near west coast Tierra del Fuego, trying to find the remaining Alakaluf Indians. By that time there were 250 of them. All this time, it rained without ceasing, only occasionally the sun peeped through.
According to his observations, in all three tribes, the family formed an independent nomadic unit with a strict division of duties between a man and a woman. Life proceeded in a constant search for food. They were interrupted only by holidays dedicated to birth and initiation, weddings and funerals. Everyday life was diversified by ritual rites, when people turned to the spirits of nature.
The Indians attached special importance to the upbringing of children. Gusinde discovered that Yamana mothers kept the dried umbilical cords of their children for four years. Then they caught a small bird, a wren, and brought the child his umbilical cord and the bird he had caught; the child tied the wren's neck with an umbilical cord and released it into the wild. It is amazing that, despite all the difficulties of nomadic life, the Indians managed to keep these brittle ribbons for four years. Does this not speak of the care with which mothers treated their offspring?
Gusinda received the deepest ideas about the worldview of the Indians during his initiation. He was the first European to be allowed to participate in this yamana ritual, which marked the transition from childhood to adulthood. For several months, the test subjects were told the covenants of their ancestors, ethical principles, and were initiated into the practical skills of their tribe. They had to endure severe trials. For a long time they spent in a particularly uncomfortable position: head bowed, arms crossed on the chest, knees tucked up sometimes for ten days in a row they were not allowed to relax, stretch their legs; they even had to spend several hours of sleep, turning on their side, in the same position. But how they knew how to relax, even crowded on a tiny piece of land!
For the first time, the Yamanas did not allow Gusinda to take notes. But a year later, during another initiation, for the first time the yamana allowed him to put the commandments of the Fuegians on paper.
However, not all scientists equally appreciate the quality of his extensive records. Although Gusinda managed to win the trust of the Indians, who volunteered to answer his countless questions, he did not have time to learn the language of each of the three tribes. Therefore, he depended on a not always knowledgeable translator. In addition, by the beginning of our century, the way of life of the Fuegians had already changed due to contact with farmers and missionaries. In many families, ancient customs and myths were only very fragmentary.
Based on these pieces, Gusinde restored, so to speak, “an ideal picture of the pre-European past”, the validity of which no one could verify. And it is quite natural that this picture, despite the sober and tenacious observation of the ethnographer, still retained much of his own ideas about what the Indians should have thought and felt. As he himself admitted, he was driven by the idea that the Indians of Tierra del Fuego “as representatives of the so-called primitive peoples belong to the oldest human groups available to us today ... My goal was to find and preserve the original human values preserved by this people.”
Missionary Gusinde adhered to the doctrine of the supreme deity, believing that it was in backward cultures that the ancient religion: belief in the supreme deity who created the world and maintained the world order.
However, the greatest place in his writings is occupied by strictly objective descriptions of the daily life of the Indians and their holidays. These recordings contain many accurate realities and are therefore as unique as the numerous photographs.
With the help of his translator, Gusinde got acquainted with the languages of the Indians, about which Charles Darwin said alas! so dismissive. In reality, however, the languages were incredibly rich, and this applies to all three languages. With amazing imagination, the Indians managed to convey what was happening in the world around them, their own feelings and abstract ideas in the form of metaphors.
For a state of spiritual depression, yamana, for example, used a word that meant the most painful period in the life of a crab, when he had already managed to shed his old shell, but the new one had not yet grown. The concept of "adulter" was suggested to them by a falcon, which, having found a victim for itself, hovering motionlessly over it. The concept of "wrinkled skin" coincided with the name of the old shell, and "hiccups" with the name of the blockage of trees that blocked the path.
The fire-earthers managed to express the finest nuances of the life of nature and man. So, "iyya" meant "to tie the boat to the thickets of brown algae", "windows" "sleep in a moving boat". Completely different words denoted such concepts as “sleeping in a hut”, “sleeping on the shore” or “sleeping with a woman”. The word "ukomona" meant "to throw a spear at a flock of fish without aiming at any of them." As for their self-name "yamana", this word meant "to live, breathe, be happy."
On that March day in 1923, Gusinde said goodbye to the 60 survivors of the Yamana tribe. Although the governments of Chile and Argentina put an end to the extermination of the Indians, the deadly influence of alcohol and disease introduced by visitors could no longer be contained. In the early forties, only about a hundred Indians remained in Tierra del Fuego.
Gusinde's ethnographic interest in primitive peoples did not fade after he returned to Europe, the researcher made more trips to the Pygmies in the Congo, to the Bushmen in the Kalahari, to the Indians of Venezuela and the Papuans of New Guinea. He published over 200 scientific papers, gave lectures on the radio, and taught at universities in Japan and the United States.
Martin Gusinde died at the age of 82 in 1969 in Austria. And eight years later, old Felipe R. Alvarez, the last purebred Yamana Indian, died in Tierra del Fuego.
Prepared by A. VOLKOV based on materials from the foreign press Photo from Geo magazine
The laws of the Yamana tribe, announced to the young men during initiation and written down by Martin Gusinde
Here are some of them:
When many guests come to your parking lot and you cannot give gifts to everyone, think first about strangers; What is left, distribute to family and friends.
When with several people you find yourself in the region where you were born, and they wish to settle down for the night, give the safest place to those who have not been here. Settle yourself in a worse place. Do not think: what do I care about the fact that strangers lose their boat.
If you are lucky on the hunt, let others join you. Moreover: show them good places, where there are many seals, which it will not be difficult to get there.
When you come to the fire, sit down with dignity, tucking your legs under you. Look at all gathered with friendliness. Don't pay attention to any one of them; don't turn your back on anyone. Don't visit too often.
If you are offered a place to stay, stay. Help people in their troubles. Nobody will ask you for help. But look, maybe they do not have enough water or firewood, or the snow has not been removed in front of the entrance. Get to work. Such people will be welcomed everywhere with joy.
Do not immediately talk about what you heard. It's too easy to sow untruth. Then people will think about who was the talker then they will find you.
When you find something, don't say it's mine. After all, soon the owner may appear. Worth seeing for him lost thing in your hands, he will point others to you and say: here is a thief! Yamanas do not tolerate thieves.
If you meet a blind man on the road, go up to him and ask: where are you going? Perhaps you will know that he is lost. Tell him at once: you have gone astray. He will gratefully answer you: therefore, I am lost. Then ask him: where can I take you? He will say: I want to get to myself. Now take him by the hand and take him away.
If you kill someone in anger or recklessness, do not try to run away. Find the strength in yourself to endure everything that follows, do not make your relatives answer for what you have done.
Never forget these instructions, If you stick to them, everything will go well, people will be pleased with you; they will say about you: good man!
In popular ethnographic literature, the inhabitants of the southern tip of the American mainland are used as an example to show how people lived in the distant past. The backwardness of these Indians is explained by the harsh nature of their homeland: agriculture is impossible here, there are few fish. Hunting and collecting edible mollusks provided meat in abundance from time to time, but this was an unreliable source of food, and it was impossible to store meat for future use in a humid climate and in the absence of salt. The thousand-year isolation of the Indians of the extreme south of the continent from other tribes also played its role.
Although Tierra del Fuego was discovered by Magellan, for three centuries Europeans rarely visited its shores. In the 19th century, the inhabitants of the island still retained their traditional way of life. The Indians hunted guanacos in the same way as the first people who crossed the Strait of Magellan 10 thousand years ago or, rather, passed along the isthmus connecting its shores. Along the southern and western coasts of Tierra del Fuego and further north, along the islets of the Chilean archipelago, Yagans and Alakaluf hunted sea animals, collected edible algae, shells, and mushrooms. By type of economy and language, they were close to the Patagonians, or Tehuelche, who lived in the steppes and semi-deserts north of the Strait of Magellan. Yagans and Alakaluf spoke languages that are not related to each other or to any other.
The fire-earthers did not have any common tribal organization, a common self-consciousness. The largest socio-economic unit was a group of related families numbering about a hundred (from 40 to 120) people. Such a group owned a certain territory within which its members hunted or searched for edible shellfish. For most of the year, individual families wandered in search of food, but from time to time a group would come together to perform rituals.
Like all other tribes, rituals were of great importance to the Fuegians. It was then that the group realized itself as a whole, the youth got acquainted with the traditions of the tribe, people who had not seen each other for many months exchanged news, experience, and knowledge. Everywhere in South America, community holidays were timed to coincide with the period of the year when game, fish abound, and fruits ripen. Otherwise, it would be impossible to feed a mass of people gathered in one place for several days, or even weeks. However, in the minds of people, such a dependence was often distorted: it was believed that rituals were not performed at the time of fruit ripening, but, on the contrary, the fruits ripened thanks to rituals. The Indians held rituals in winter, moving from the interior of the main island to its eastern and north coast where enough food could be obtained during this period of the year. The Yagans and Alakalufs did not have such seasonal movements. If any group managed to stumble upon a whale carcass thrown out by the sea or discover a particularly rich seal rookery, this message was passed on to the neighbors, giving a signal with the smoke of a fire, and boats soon began to sail here.
Thus, the holiday was possible if there was enough food. At the same time, the organization of rituals in this case became a necessity. Quarrels and misunderstandings could easily arise among those gathered, their behavior should be introduced into some kind of framework, subject to strict, generally recognized norms. Even a person inclined to start a quarrel did not dare to do this during the holiday, as he believed that the spirits would not forgive disrespect to them.
Despite the different origins of all three Fireland tribes and significant differences in the economy and way of life between the On, on the one hand, and the Yagans and Alakaluf, on the other, the rites described by them are very similar. This indicates that the feast of the incarnation of spirits reflected the most general ideas of primitive man about the world, common among peoples living in different conditions. Therefore, the forms of rituals were easily borrowed by some tribes from others.
Our information about the rituals of the Indians who lived on the southern tip of the American mainland would be extremely fragmentary if it were not for the work of several enthusiastic ethnographers who studied the Fuegians in the 20s of our century. In the middle of the 19th century, the contacts of the natives with Europeans increased - sailors, missionaries, colonists. As a result, diseases spread against which the Indians had no immunity. The number of she and yagans, which reached four and three thousand people, respectively, a century and a half ago, by 1918 had decreased to 300 and 70 people. At this critical moment, the German Catholic priest and physician M. Guzinde visited Tierra del Fuego for the first time and decided that it was his duty to save the culture of the inhabitants of the island from oblivion before it was too late. In 1918-1924 he organized four expeditions to the Yagans and Selknas. He managed to collect less information about the traditional culture of the Alakaluf, since it had already declined by the beginning of our century. Almost simultaneously with Guzinda, his colleague M. Koppers and the American ethnographer S. K. Lothrop worked.
However, during these years the Fuegians did not celebrate their ancient rites any more. But people of the older generation remembered well how they participated in solemn ceremonies in their youth, and at the request of Guzinde and Koppers they performed them for the last time. Of course, one cannot guarantee that everything was done with due completeness. For example, according to the observations of the beginning of the 20th century, she had some kind of musical instrument that made an unpleasant and sharp sound. It is very possible that it sounded at the festival and was supposed to convey the voice of some spirit. Guzinda, however, did not find such an instrument. The attitude towards rituals has also partly changed. Traditional religion has ceased to play its former role in the life of the Fuegians. The Indians saw that their world, together with all its real and mythical inhabitants, was disappearing before their eyes, and was replaced by another one in which they had no place. Accordingly, the ceremonies that Guzinde and Koppers saw, partly lost their proper seriousness. It is doubtful that in the past the Indians would have allowed outsiders to observe them at all.
The rites of the incarnation of spirits were called in the language of she klokten. At first, the men erected a large conical structure of poles, reminiscent of a Siberian tent, with access to the east, preferably to the forest. If bad weather did not destroy last year's building, they tried to take advantage of it: after all, it was not so easy to cut down multi-meter poles again with the help of stone tools. permanent sacred places didn't exist. On the western side, behind the plague, a large clearing began, separating it from residential huts, which were very primitive - conical huts, or even just barriers from the wind from branches covered with skins.
The ritual hut was called xáin. The poles of its frame had their own names and symbols, and were placed in a certain order. It was believed that at the beginning of time, seven mighty men, having converged near the southeastern tip of Tierra del Fuego, built the first hain from giant stones and performed klokten for the first time. Everything that the mythical characters did at that time, people began to repeat after them every year. The hut made of stones turned into a mountain, and everyone who had to sleep near it saw the first klokten in a dream.
After the ritual hut was set up, men secretly from teenagers and women prepared masks from leather and bark, painted their bodies with stripes and spots. When everything was ready, the men quietly made their way into the hut. That is why the entrance to it was turned towards the forest, otherwise the women could have guessed that the spirits penetrate into hain not in a mysterious way from the ground, but in a much more natural way. Nevertheless, not only the spectators, but also the participants of the klokten themselves believed that real spirits really come out of the hearth in the center of hain, moving into men who put on masks. Thus, the ritual hut was thought of as a link that temporarily connected two worlds - the real one, in which the Indians lived, and the imaginary world of the first ancestors who inhabited the earth in the era of creation.
The Yagans and Alakalufs prepared for the holiday in much the same way as she did. Only the ritual building could be different - not a conical tent, but a long hut, the frame of which resembled a huge inverted basket. This frame was covered with turf, grass, branches. According to ethnographers, Yagans and Alakaluf borrowed many features of the rites from her. In particular, the very name of the holiday in the language of the Yagans, kina, goes back to the word “hain”, which they used to designate a ritual hut.
Having painted and put on masks, the men depicting spirits came out of hiding into the clearing and tried to make a frightening impression on the women. Those with a cry hid in their huts, and then again went out to look at what was happening. Alakaluf set up a special women's hut in which the uninitiated could hide from the dangerous creatures that threatened them. From time to time one of the men, having removed the mask, went to the women and said that the spirits were hungry. Having received food, the men naturally ate it themselves.
One has to be amazed at how complex and elaborate was the “performance”, which lasted for many days and included the release of more and more new spirits. Each differed in something outwardly, had his own voice, played out some kind of pantomime. During the klokten, the boys learned for the first time from her that all these terrible demons, although they allegedly exist in reality, are present at the holiday only symbolically - they are depicted by men. Among the Yagans and Alakalufs, initiation rites were performed separately and were less spectacular: teenagers were shown a single spirit.
Who exactly did the Fuegians represent? She gave supreme power to a female being named Halpen. Unlike other spirits, Halpen did not have a humanoid incarnation. From the skins and grass, the men made a serpentine effigy 6 meters long and about 80 centimeters thick, painted it and occasionally stuck it out of the ceremonial hut. This spectacle was supposed to terrify the uninitiated. Although the women guessed who and how made the effigy, none of them was ever present at the same time. So there was no complete certainty that Halpen really did not crawl out of the ground.
The uninitiated could form an idea of what was going on in hain from the sounds coming through. Here were the cheers - this means that Halpen has finally appeared. But the voices fell silent one after another, and the women should have thought that their husbands and sons had been swallowed up by the monster. From that moment on, only spirits filled the hut.
The mystery played out by men in front of the uninitiated had a certain plot. Its central episode was the birth of a child by Halpen from her connection with the spirits who found themselves in hain. The newborn demon was called Keternen, and he could be either a boy or a girl. In the latter case, the men showed a lot of ingenuity: after all, after some time, Keternen had to be presented to the audience, and the Fuegians did not wear loincloths. A short person was chosen for this role, who was given a special dressing, the body was pasted over with white fluff, and a mask was put on his head.
Many of the Fireland "demons" had their own colors. For example, Halpen was thought to be a white creature, and her sister, Tanu's counterpart, was red. White, red, black and yellow paints were used by the Fuegians for drawing patterns on the body and on various objects. For example, in the ritual hut of the Yagans, at the level of the eyes of a standing person, three parallel stripes were drawn along the walls: the red one symbolized stones on the shore covered with brown algae, the white one - sea foam, the black one - shells of mollusks on the shallows. All together pointed to the connection of spirits with the sea where they live.
The choice of colors by the Fuegians is not accidental. Linguists have long noticed that many nations have more words for red than for blue and green. According to most researchers, primitive people distinguished only three colors in nature: white, black and red (yellow was equated to white or red). Of course, this does not mean that our ancestors were color blind and did not see other colors. However, the blue-green part of the spectrum did not matter, did not stand out. As noted by the American archaeologist T. Grieder, they paid attention to it only in the era of early civilizations, when they began to appreciate blue and green stones such as turquoise and lapis lazuli. It is possible that it was the prevalence of blue and green colors in nature (sky, leaves) that prevented primitive man from focusing on them. At the same time, all readily available dyes (chalk, ocher, charcoal) give a white-red-black gamut. There could be another reason as well. Having no other measures for comparison, primitive man likened what he saw around him to the processes that he observed in his own body. In particular, any red objects around the world were somehow associated with blood.
Along with Khalpen and the corresponding female characters of Yagans and Alakaluf, the Fuegians portrayed male demons during the rituals. She considered Shoorte to be the main one of them. Sometimes he appeared alone, but more often - in the form of a whole crowd of demons, only slightly different from each other. appearance. Seven Shoorte were considered major, but there were at least eight minor ones. All of them were Halpen's husbands. It was impossible to kill Shoorte: it was believed that if you break his head, a whole host of similar creatures would come out of it. Spirits like Halpen and Shoorte were perceived as the masters of the elements, the embodiment of the mysterious and formidable forces of nature. In addition to them, the participants in the rituals portrayed many characters of a lower rank - totems, most often associated with various types of animals, especially marine ones. Among them are a dolphin, a kite, a blue whale, a falcon, a sea urchin, a jellyfish, an octopus, a squid. The predominance of marine creatures in this list is partly due to the fact that the aquatic fauna in Tierra del Fuego is much richer than the terrestrial one. In addition, this is explained by the idea of the underwater world as a different, "other world".
The attitude of the Indians towards the characters of klokten was complex. Demons were seriously afraid, but they were also expected to support and send down good luck. This is natural, since the images of mythological creatures reflected ideas about nature- full of dangers and at the same time giving everything that a person needed. The Fuegians were to some extent aware of the inconsistency of their views and tried to somehow resolve these contradictions. Their beliefs cannot be called primitive, in some nuances they turn out to be no less complex and thoughtful than the doctrines of medieval theologians. For example, among the Yagans, coming out of the underground depths evil spirit Etaita (who occupied the same place as Shoorte in her) was simultaneously identified with the bright supreme deity named Vatauneiva. Similar ideas were shared by the Alakaluf. Such mythological subtleties remained unknown to women and children not initiated into the sacraments, but the old men, shamans in their thoughts and conversations sometimes reached the level of real religious philosophy.
The creation of fantastic, but in their own way logical religious and mythological concepts, the free operation in these cases with abstract concepts is characteristic of many primitive peoples of South America. Until recently, this kind of intellectual activity of people living in a pre-class society was hidden from scientists. The Europeans judged the spiritual life of the "savage" by his primitive material culture. And the main thing here was not so much ignorance local languages how much psychological unpreparedness of ethnographers. In the same way, in the first years after the discovery of cave painting, the scientific community of Europe did not want to believe that such masterpieces were created by the hand of an artist of the ancient stone age.
However, as in any society, in the primitive tribe there were people better and worse familiar with the achievements of their culture. These differences are caused not only by the unequal abilities and interests of the members of the team. Something else is more important. Any intellectual activity requires the full return of energy and time. Therefore, the ideas about the spiritual essence of a person or about the universe in a teenager who has just passed the rites of initiation, and in an old shaman, are very different. In particular, for ordinary members of the tribe, myths are more or less literal accounts of past events, while for some people of the older generation, they are rather allegories. This should not be forgotten when faced with strange, in our opinion, episodes of Indian legends.
spiritual and intellectual level any society is largely dependent on those highest achievements achieved by at least a few of its members. Pursuing pagan priests and shamans after the conquest of America, Catholic Church spiritually decapitated local residents, deprived them of their own cultural values. This was an important condition for the subsequent assimilation of many Indian peoples.
