Left:
The modern geography of Chiloé island.
Below:
The historical Chono and Kawesqar (Alakaluf) tribal
territoryin the late 18th century.
54. Possible Relatives in the Americas
The Chono people (Chiloé island, Los Lagos, Chile)
by George Weber
The Chono are an extinct group that lived from the sea, using nets and spears, much like the Fuegian Kawesqar to their south. The Chono may well have gone back to the original founding population of the Fuegian "Boat People" - the Kawesqar (Alakaluf) and the Yamana (Yaghan). This can now only be proven by etxtracting DNA from Chono remains or from traces of Chono DNA in the living Chiloé population. The tribe has never been scentifically investigated or described properly when it was still living and there is no recorded information on their language. What little is known of them has come from casual observers such as sailors and merchants.
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Left:
Below:
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Even though nothing is known of the Chono language, under some schemes of classification a Chono language family has been set up which is thought to include some or all of the Fuegian and Patagonian languages, depending on the beliefs of the classifying linguists. Rather strangely, one cannot be sure that the Chono language was a member of the Chono language family - such are the tribulations of language classification (see also Fuegian and Patagonian languages). Things are not made clearer by the fact that there is a living Chono tribe in Ecuador that has nothing to do with the extinct Chiloé Chonos.
The Chilean Chono had a special breed of long-haired dog (now also extinct) that was used in hunting and fishing and whose long hair together with plant fibres was weaved into mats and clothes.
The Chono boats were called dalcas and had anchors made of wood weighted with stones. On dry land the Chono lived in caves or in man-made shelters consisting of a wooden structure covered in leather, rather like the Kawesqar.
Before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, the Chono supplemented their food from small gardens with potatoes and other vegetables. During Spanish times they added maize and barely and kept some goats and sheep. But the main food source was always seashells, fish and sea lion meat,
Their most developed tools were spears and nets made of vegetal fiber. There is also a local tradition according to which the churches of the early Jesuits were often burnt down by the local Chono so that they could collect the valuable iron nails.
What little is known of their family and other social structures during Spanish times indicates that it was similar to that of the Kawesqar.
The Chono had become culturally extinct by the late 18th century but it was not until 1875 that the last surviving Chono family vanished from the records. At that time the tribe had been completely absorbed in the general Chilean-Mapuche amerind population of the area.
The coasts of Chiloé are dotted with a large number of sometimes enormous kitchen midden.The oldest date found so far is from the base of the Yaldad 7 midden at around 6,000 years before the present.
The midden consist of sea shells, pottery shards and stone tools and were accumulated over the milennia milennia by what we assume to have been the the ancestors of the Chono and rperesent a vast treasure trove of archaeoelogical information. The first midden on Chiloé were excavated in the 1930 by J. Bird, followed by more excavations in 1963 by V. de Acuna. The same technological sequences (big unifacial choppers, followed by smaller bi-facial stone tools and arrow points) were found as in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia.
The tsunami of 1960 did a lot of damage along the coasts of Chiloé, not least among the island's archaeological heritage.
Drawing on Legoupil D. 2005. "Recollectores de Moluscos Tempraneos en el Sureste de la Isla de Chiloé: una prima mirada". Magallania, 33(1):51-61) we are giving a few samples from that little-known Chon heritage here.
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The greatest concentration of midden is found in the fjords of the southeast of Chiloé island: in the fjords of Chadmo (to the north of Huildad, not shown on map below; severly damaged in the tsunami of 1960), of Huildad, Yaldad and Compu.
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The Yaldad sites
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The estern coast of Yaldad fjord is the area richest in kitchen midden on Chiloé island. The road terminating in the small town of Yaldad is the southernmost part of the Transamericana that goes all the way north to Alaska.
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The Yaldad 7 kitchen midden on Chiloé island has produced the oldest date found so far: 6,000 years before the present. (photograph D. Legroupil) |
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The Yaldad 10 kitchen midden gives an impression of how
large these prehistoric refuse tips could grow over many
milennia of use. |
The Huildad sites
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The Huildad fjord kitchen midden.
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The Compu site
The largest kitchen midden of Chiloé island is found at the site of Compu (at 42o 52' 10" S, 73o 42' 34 W), north of Huildad fjord. This midden was more than 100 m long and 6-8 m high originally but was severely damaged when a house was erected on it.
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The Compu site, complete with modern house on top.
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Among web-sites with further information are:
- http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0718-22442005000100004&script=sci_arttext
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Last change 31 March 2007
