54. Possible Relatives in the Americas

The Haush (Manek'enk) People

by George Weber

The Haush tribal territory in the mid-19th century:

The Haush are the least known of the Fuegian tribes.

The Haush lived in the easternmost part of the Great Island on the Mitre peninsula when they first encountered outside observers. The Haush visited Staten island (which they called Chuanisin or "land of abundance") during the less stormy periods of the year to hunt and collect food. The passage between Cape San Diego and Staten island accross one of the stormiest and roughest seas of the world. Impressive skill and stamina was required from the Haush hunter-gatherers to reach the island and return safely. Archaeological sites of hunting camps of most likely Haush origin dating back to 3,500 or more years before the present have been found on the island.

Staten island is an impressive sight with its mountains often shrouded in fast-moving clouds and rising steeply from the sea (highest elevation Mt Spegazzini, 741 m) when viewed from nearest shores 30 km away. It is not surprising that the island figures prominently in the recorded legends and mythology of both Ona and Haush and was regarded as "beyond the world". A great magician/wind of the west and a great magician/sea of the north were said to battle in the strait and produce the enormous storms that are common there.

 

One of the very rare photographs of Haush people before they lost their original culture, way of life and language in the late 19th century.

As in all the other Fuegian tribes touched by outsiders from the mid-19th century onwards, the number of Haush has sunk steadily. Today they are culturally and physically extinct.

1850: 300 Haush persons

1913: 5 Haush persons

1925: 3 Haush persons

The number of living Haush in the records is made uncertain by the (often undeclared) habit of some authors to simply subsume the Haush under the Ona, even though the two were quite different people with (as far as we know) rather different traditions, myths, economies, habits and languages.

Salesian missionaries were the only outsiders to take a positive if ineffectual interest in the welfare of the Haush. The decline had begun earlier with the arrival of the first sheep-farming settlers from the outside in 1871. The settlers forcibly removed the Haush from their hunting grounds to make room for ever-growing herds of sheep. We donot know when the last Haush person died.

Left: The shaman Tenenisk was part Ona and part Haush Right: Tenenisk's wife, Leluwhachin was Haush Both photographs were taken by the Missionary Martin Gusinde (1886-1969) between 1911 and 1924 when he was stationed in Tierra del Fuego.

It has been speculated that the Haush were the descendants of the earliest humans to arrive at the southern tip of South America, more than 13,000 years ago (see also Fuegian Archaeology), and that the Ona arrived somewhat later. It is also thought that the Ona pushed the Haush gradually into the cul-de-sac of the Mitre peninsula. There is no hard evidence for this scanario but it does seem likely hat the Haush had already been in slow retreat for a long time before the advancing Ona, before the Europeans arrived in large numbers during the 19th century.

Maria Jose Figuerero Torres, Ricardo A. Guichon and Luis A. Borrero of the Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska have tested the linkage between ethnohistorically recorded subsistence patterns and prehistoric lifeways in the Fuegian region. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes were assayed from human burials that date within the last 1500 years before European contact. Isotopic analyses substantially confirm the ethnohistorically documented patterns, but also reveal some anomalies: data from the Haush region suggest primary dependence on marine resources, like the Yamana, while the Ona had limited use of such resources. There had been considerable differencesbetween the two goups after all.

A craniometric analysis of the 5 of the 8 known Haush skulls (3 are deliberately deformed and cannot be used for craniometry) were analysed in 2001 by W. A Neves et al (Neves is the craniometric analyst of Luzia in Brazil): 5 male and 2 female. They were excavated in 1984 at the Bahia Valentin (see map above).

The following is from Neves W.A., Blum M., and Kozameh L. 2001. "Fuegian Cranial Morphology: The Haush." Ciência e Cultura, Journal of the Brazilian Association for the Advancement of Science. vol. 53, 2:69-71):

Taking into account the information displayed on figures 1 and 2 below, it is not so clear if the Housh population is really a subgroup of Selk'nam... Although the Selk'nam is the nearest group to the Haush in the case of the female data analysis, the male data analysis does not support the association between these two Fuegian populations. As a probable result, the hypothesis of Chapman and Hester seems more plausible. These authors described the Haush as an autonomous group of Tierra del Fuego that was once pushed south of Isla Grande by a larger population, the Selk'nam. This process seems to have involved belligerent behavior, with the Haush loosing numerous individuals, probably because of death or absorption. This could explain why the Haush was already a small aboriginal group by the time of the arrival of the Europeans. If one takes into account that abduction of women is a frequent phenomenon in primitive war, it would explain the closer affinity between females of both groups. Although we consider the Haush sample to be valid because of its rarity, it is very small and may be affected by sampling error. Therefore, more evidence is needed to clarify the origins and behaviour of the populations of Tierra del Fuego...

The craniometric analysis mentioned in the quotation above is shown (adapted from the same source)) as follows and in compares the genetically-determined features of Haush skulls with those of other populations. Two variables (here Principal Components PC1 and PC2) are used.

Abbreviations:

Non-Fuegian people (black type):
AIN - Ainu, ANY - Anyang, ARI - Arikara, BUR - Buriat, CAL - Santa Cruz Amerinds, EAS - Eastern islanders, ESK - Inuit (Eskimo), GUA - Guam, HAI - Chinese, HOK - Hokkaido, KYU - Kyushu, MOK - Mokapu, MOR - Moriori, PER - Peruvian Amerinds, PHI - Flipinos, TAI - Atayal.

Fuegian people (red type:
HAU - Haush, KAW - Kawesqar (Alakaluf), SEL - Selk'nam (Ona), YAM - Yamana (Yahgan)

Very little, too, is known of the Haush language. Martin Gusinde who did his research in the early decades of the 20th century (see Ona tribe for a short biography) recognized only three Fuegian languages: Kwaseqar, Yamana and Ona. In his surviving papers, however, an unpublished 3-page manuscript has come to light that lists the differences between the Ona and the Haush languages and that shows that Gusinde himself was growing doubtful about his classification of Haush. Charles Wellington Furlong (who was doing linguistic research in Tierra del Fuego 1907-1908) reports that Haush was not intelligible to Ona speakers which means that it was a separate language.

M. Ruhlen (in A Guide to the World's Languages, vol. 1, Stanford University Press, 1987/1991) classifies Haush along with the Ona and Tehuelche (Teushen, Aoinikenk or Patagonian languages) into the Patagonian sub-group of the southern branch of the Andean language family. This makes Haush a member of the Amerind super-family of languages to which all native languages in the South and most in North America are thought by some to belong. The classification is controversial and not based on much linguistic or any other hard evidence. The Haush language (along with Ona) has also been classified as belonging to the Chono language family. See also Fuegian and Patagonian languages.

For more information about the Haush people see:

- http://www.limbos.org/sur/haus.htm 

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Last change 1 March 2007