54. Possible Relatives in the Americas
The Yamana (Yahgan) People
by George Weber
The Yamana tribal territory in the mid-19th century:
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Two faces of enormous dignity: the last Yaghans. Lola Kiepja died in 1975, Felipe "the Survivor" in the following year.. |
Yamana, Yaghan, Yahgan, Yagan, Yamana or Hausi-Kuta are alternative names for the Yamana people and their language. "Yahgan" (or Yaghan) is said to have been an English shortening of "Yahgashagalumoala", meaning "people of the mountain valley channel", an accurate description of their environment). Because of relatively close contacts with the outside world going back possibly to beyond the time when Tierra del Fuego was officially discovered in the 16th century, the Yamana had more experience with outside people and other cultures than the Ona and Haush tribes. The stories of Captain FitzRoy's captives which Charles Darwin also got to know well show this but it did not save the Yamana from universally being regarded as "savages" by "civilized" peiople.
Unlike the Haush or Ona, the Yamana often (but not always) went naked - and this despite a climate for which the word savage is fully appropriate. Instead of clothes, the Yamana rubbed themselves in fish and seal oil. This did give some protection but also made their personal smell something of an acquired taste for outsiders.The oil also covered one of the world's most astonishing human adaptations. An average citizen of the world today - however heavily smeared all over with fish oil - would survive only briefly in a Fuegian Winter and would have serious problems even at the height of southern Summer. The Yamana did not only survive, stark naked most of the time, but they thrived. There is only one explanation for this remarkable aptitude: they must have lived in the area for sugh a long time (mopre than ten thousand years) that they had time to develop a genetic adaption to cold. To do so needsss time and the Yamana must have been under severe evolutionary pressure. Why they did not go the quicker and simpler way of using animal skins like the Ona we shall probably never know. The Fuegian's is the only such adaptiation known among Homo sapiens.. Neanderthal man (who thrived in the Eurasian ice age) may have developed a similar genetic method to trick their even nastier climate.
All photographs shown below were taken in the late 19th century.
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A Yamana family. Photographs by Gusinde,early 20th 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: the Yamana populations may have been more dependent on terrestrial resources (i.e., guanaco) than had been hitherto thought.
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A Yamana woman and child and Yamana boys Photographs by Gusinde,early 20th century
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As in all the other Fuegian tribes touched by outsiders from tbhe mid-91th century onwards, the number of Yamans sunk steadily. Today they are culturally extinct. Every now and then a "last Yaghan" is said to have died but these newspaper stories are difficult to verify.
Last half of 18th century: 3,600 Yamana persons
1850: 2,900 Yamana persons
1925: 50 Yamana persons
1955: 30 Yamana persons
2003: 1 person still said to speak the language and 100 claiming to be Yamana but not speaking the language
Some linguists say the language is close to Kawseqar, others to Ona and still others claim it is a language isolate.See Fuegian and Patagonian languages.
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Yamana youths group themselves for the missionary photographer - in remarkably modern and unmissionary poses. Photographs by Gusinde,early 20th century |
The canoe was the largest but also the most important single tool in Yamana culture. The canoe wass fast, flexible, practically unsinkable and well- adapted to the rough seas and worse winds of the area.
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Below left:
The Yamana built special slips (or "portages") to move their canoes
overland, sometimes for considerable distances. A slip built into
coastal bushes could also provide a perfect hiding place for one or
more canoes.
Below right: a
A traditional Yamana canoe. A live fire on a protective layer of sand
was often carried on board, especially during longer trips. It was
such canoes that Captain FitzRoy of the Beagle could spot from
afar from their column of smoke during his fateful and historic
"Chase of the stolen boat" (see Captain
FitzRoy's Captives)
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When fishing or hunting sea mammals, the Yamana used a wide variety of tools: spear points, harpoons, boats, baskets, made from all available materials (bone, stone, teeth, sinews, etc) ). Indeed, the Yanama tool kit was as sophisticated as their wardrobe was basic.
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A Yamana kitchen midden on Navarino island near Woollya. Such midden occur all over Tierra del Fuego and they often contain tools just like the ones shown above. The stratification allows the dating of artefacts and to follow the development of a culture over thousands of years. Midden may not look very glamorous (they are very old rubbish tips) but they can contain a vast amount of information about ancient people. The white specks on this photographs are the shells of countless mussles and eaten by Yamana ancestors over the centuries. Some archaeological work has been done on such midden in Tierra del Fuego, see also the chapter Fuegian Archaeology. |
There are several Yamana dictionaries and an unknown but considerable number of tape recordings and documents gathering dust in museum storage. Very little recent work has been done on the language and t much could still be learnt from the unread documents and tapes on file. Modern linguistic techniques could also, no doubt, gives us a much deeper insight into this complex language and people.
Thomas Bridges (1841-1898) compiled a large Yamana dictionary and his son Lucas said about the Yamana language that
... within its own limits, it is infinitely richer and more expressive than English or Spanish. The "Dictionary of Yagán or Yamana-English", written by my father, contains not less than thirty and two thousand words and flexions, that could considerably be increased without deviating from the correct language. The Yagans had at least five words for the word 'snow'; for 'beach' they had more yet; the selection of the correct word depended on several factors, or the location of the beach with relation to who spoke, or to the fact of having earth or water between one and the beach or the direction of this.The same words varied with meaning according to site. Thus, a word used while being in a canoe meant something different when it was pronounced to describe the same object with the person being on the ground. [duan, stony beach; lahpicun, muddy beach; asetan, sandy beach; wahan, beach on which they put their canoes to dry...]
To express family relations, Yagans (Yamana) had at least fifty different words, each one emphasizing some particularitities.
Great wealth also is shown in the use of verbs: ata, to raise with the hands, mnikata, to elevate in the arms, kumata, to elevate an object with another extremity, gaiata, to elevate an object with the end of another extremity, mulata, to raise a thing with two fingers as a cup, etc.
Bove noted (mentioned by A.Coiazzi):
The Yagan language differs sensibly from that of its neighbors, the Alacalufs and Onas; and while the words of these last are hard, guttural, formed of consonants, those of former are sweet, pleasant, full of vowels. This wealth of their language gives Yagans a truly surprising oratory facility.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaghan_language
for more information about grammar and vocabulary of the Yamana
language.
For theYamana language with some sample words and comparisons with
other languages, see the chapter Fuegian
languages.
Yamana society was based on small family groups headed by the most experienced male. The groups lived within and of their own hunting territories but had contact with neighbouring families and would give mutual assistance when needed. These small groups did not have chiefs above them, but old people and shamans were of great importance and highly respected by all. The Yamana had a supreme being, Watatauinewa (the "Old One") which was thought to have been the creator of everything. There were also many kinds of spirits, both beneficial and malicious.
There were two successive initiation rites held by the Yaghans: the Great Hut Ritee and the Men's House rite. If there was enough food, they were held in winter but could be held at some other time if needs must of whenever there was an unusual abundance of food, for example when a whale had been stranded. Yaghans would gather from
Rites of initiation for boys were of great importance. The Yamana's male initiation ceremony and the pattern of body painting used were surprisingly similar to the Hain ceremony of the Ona tribe, otherwise the Yamana's deadliest enemies with no friendly contact between them. The ceremony may well have been a ritual with roots in a remote past before the Fuegians spread out to fill different economic niches and before they had separated into culturally different tribes. If so, it would make the ceremony ancient indeed. The initiation ceremony was sacred and could only be attended by members of the tribe. After having completed the ritual, the young men were considered fully adult with all the rights and duties of adulthood. Some young adults showing special talent later received additional instruction by shamans and could then become shamans themselves by undergoing another ceremony.
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Standard body-painting pattern used at the initiation ceremonies
The ceremony was kept secret from outsiders and the missionaries were not aware of its existence until 1921 when the Yamana wife of a missionary's son by accident mentioned the ceremony in the presence of the missionary-anthropologist Gusinde. The latter realized the importance of what had been said and he did not desist from questioning the Yamanas until he had found out about it. He then persuaded the suviving Yaghans to re-stage the ceremony and went through it twice himself. It is, however, most unlikely that decades after the last "serious" ceremony had been performed and in the presence of so many missionaries, that the ceremony would have been shown in its full extent or correctly - a half-remembered spectacle.
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The famous anthropologist, Carleton S. Coonhas described the ceremony as follows (in his book, The Hunting People , 1971, Nick Lyons Books):
The Great Hut was a long, oval structure built on the same domed principle as the round ones used for habitations, and strong enough to hold one or more guards sitting on the roof, to withstand both the buffeting of the winds and the shaking given the walls by the performers in order to drive inquisitive.. spirits away. At the end facing the camp was a relatively wide entrance, and at the end facing the forest was. a narrower one through which the candidates could slip in and out unobserved by the people in the camp. Each entrance was covered with hanging skins. The hut in which Gusinde was initiated was about thirty feet long and ten feet wide (9 x 3 m). The huts had been longer in the old days, sometimes holding fifty to eighty persons. In either case its roof was high enough for people to dance upright along the midline, which served also as the fireplace, bordered with logs. Inside, sticks painted black, white, and red were tied along the walls, and other such sticks dangled from the roof. Their designs were simple bars, circles, and dots, said to be without special meaning. About forty feet away on the camp side the participants also built an ordinary-looking hut for cooking, to feed all those inside the Great Hut. Four or five initiated women would be cooks. They would take turns preparing the food so that each of them would miss only parts of the performance each day. The chief guard personified a predatory sea bird, Leucophaeus scoresbii, that is often seen with blood on its beak, and he therefore displayed a streak of red paint running from his nose to his chin. He also wore a special headband of white albatross feathers. He or one of his assistants sat on top of the hut to drive away children or strangers with the fierce cry of the bird he was impersonating, and also to keep an eye on novices who might be permitted to leave the Great Hut to relieve themselves, or to gather firewood. Inside ware the leader, an active and nimble man who directed the various parts of the rite; and an older man, the so-called overseer, who quietly directed the leader, telling him when he made mistakes. Inside the Great Hut the seating arrangements were as follows: one sponsor, his or her novice, the second sponsor, a trio of sponsor-novice-sponsor, and so on around both sides of the hearth. Early in the first day the leader and the overseer entered, first to meditate, and in so doing to prepare for their routines. Then came the other fully initiated persons, including the teacher and the sponsors. Each male novice had either two male sponsors or one of either sex, and the female novices had two female sponsors each. Incidentally, the sponsor-novice relationship held throughout life. The Sponsors still gave advice, and their novices took care of them when old. In at least one case a boy's sponsor was his uncle. Each of these persons wore a forehead decoration made of a piece of albatross or goose skin with feathers on, held in place by a headband, and each carried a dance-wand, about eighteen inches long, pointed at one end, painted white with red lines and dots, and with a ring of down glued near the pointed end. Shortly after everyone but the novices had been seated, the principal male sponsor of each boy quietly absented himself to decorate himself in a special fashion, for he soon had a special role to play. Later, at a signal from the leader, the guards removed a long strap of hide from one wall of the Great Hut. Holding this strap stretched out, they ran out in single file to the hut where the first novice was hiding, seized him, tied him up, and carried or led him to the Great Hut. The guards then shoved him through the front entrance on his hands and knees, and when he was just inside a man clapped a piece of skin over his head, effectively blindfolding him. At that moment everyone inside began to howl and to beat the ground. Once the candidate had been seated, still blindfolded, his chief sponsor appeared, painted and otherwise disguised as an evil spirit, Yetaite, who lives underground. Yetaite keeps a sharp eye on people's conduct, and if they don't behave he jumps out of the ground to punish them. The ritual Yetaite had powdered ochre in his rumpled hair, red paint on his face with white lines radiating from his mouth, white paint all over his body, and a feather ornament hanging between his shoulders. With him came an assistant wearing a wreath of twigs on his head, the upper part of his face black, the lower part red. When Yetaite appeared, others poked up the embers to illuminate the chamber. Yetaite seemed to leap out of the flames, and at the same time someone else removed the novice's blindfold. Yetaite seized the boy, shook him and pressed him against the ground, while the others present screamed and pounded the earthen floor. After about ten minutes, when the boy was in a cold sweat, the leader of the ceremony cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted: "Hoo-Hoo!" meaning that Yetaite is dead. The Yetaite-impersonator next crouched in front of his victim, and another man sitting next to the boy said: "Look closely, that is So-and-So (quite often the boy's uncle)." That man would be the boy's special sponsor for the rest of the ceremony. The sponsor-novice relationship was one of a greater intimacy than that between the boy and his father, and would remain so for life. The rest of the candidates were brought into the Great Hut in turn and the performance was repeated, except that the girls were not made to undergo the Yetaite ordeal, but as they saw it done to the boys, they were frightened enough. After these rigorous introductions the routine began. Except when excused for natural needs, sent out to collect firewood, or led out to be given special instruction in the woods or on the beach, during the rest of the ceremony each candidate had to sit up, cross-legged, in the small space assigned him, motionless and silent. Though rain might drip on his back, no one would plug the hole in the roof. Someone might place a grub or insect on his back, but the novice could not remove it. If a funny story was told, he might not laugh without receiving a reprimand. In punishment for any such breach of Jconduct or other disobedience, his sponsor and the leader sent him down to the, draughty end of the Great Hut, near the smaller entrance, to sit by the door without food for a day or two. For the first four to six days each candidate was given only one mussel to eat, in the afternoon, and a drink of water, sucked through a bird-bone tube from a snail shell. His sponsor saw to it that he slept only between midnight and about five in the morning. If he fell asleep at any other time someone would poke him saying: "Sometime you will have to. sleep upright in a crowded canoe. It is better that you learn to do it here." During the evening, the novices were led to the beach to bathe. Three times during the ceremonial period they were also taken there to be tattooed, each time in a horizontal line around the chest, except for the skin over the spine. First the lines were d.rawn with ochre, then the incisions were made with mussel shells, and the ochre was rubbed in. The ensuing marks looked like blue lines under the skin. Three times a week the novices were given lectures, lasting about an hour each, by the teacher. He was a man of impeccable conduct who sat silently for hours in advance, preparing his speech in his mind. The discourses covered the totality of the Yaghans' rules of adult behavior between the sexes and between members of different age groups. For example, the girls were told that if their husbands began to pursue other women, they should pretend not to notice it for the first few times, and then a husband will probably tire of his affair, and come back. When the candidates were sent to the forest to collect firewood, they were told not to loiter or eat mushrooms or other snacks on the way, for the spirits living in old treetrunks might see them and report. Actually the guards kept them under secret observation. During the latter part of the ceremonial period the candidates were also led to the beach by some of their sponsors for practical instruction and testing. The boys were taught how various species of animals behave and shown how to harpoon them, with baskets as targets. The girls were taught how to make baskets and to collect shellfish. If a candidate failed to perform satisfactorily, the instruction would be prolonged accordingly. While all these events were transpiring, the other people in the house sang. Each person sang alone, repeating a single word over and over with variations in pitch, and without melody or harmony. The purpose of this singing was not group entertainment, but to put each singer into a private state of spiritual exaltation. In the late afternoon everyone sang more loudly. They stood up, one by one, holding their dance-wands between the fingers of both hands, and glided with shuffling steps from one end of the Great Hut to the other along the hearth, in which the fire Was by now almost out. The can" didates were allowed to stand up and dance, accompanied by their sponsors. The session was over when one man danced down the hearthline and back again, holding his dance-wand horizontally, begging food from those seated, redistributing it to others, and finally eating a little of it himself. He was sending away the spirits that had come to the ceremony. Everyone made a gesture of pulling something toward his or her body, thus putting his or her spirit back inside if it had temporarily wandered out. Then everyone stuck his dance-wand in the ground, hung up his headband, and went to sleep. The ritual period ended when the people in charge thought that the candidates had learned as much as they could; when someone died; when they ran out of food; or when the participants were getting restless or bored. Then the leader announced the finale. A curtain of sea-lion skins was hung up in the rear of the Great Hut, and the candidates were seated behind it. The people left behind in the camp appeared as audience, and all were painted. A middle-aged man went behind the curtain and led the candidates, now graduates, out. They danced up and down the hearth several times, and then each one's chief sponsor took his or her hand and invited him or her to sit down. This was the incorporation part of the ceremony, the end. |
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There was a further and higher ceremony in which only those who had passed the earlier initiation ceremony were allowed to participate in (again as reported by C.S. Coon): The Yamana Men's House Ceremony
The next rite is the kina, or Men's House Ceremony, through which all young men who had passed through the Great Hut rite twice were initiated into full manhood. Its candidates might vary considerably in age because some of them would have failed the Great Hut test at least once, before they finally passed. Its context was the myth of the Great Upheaval and Flood, in which the men stole the women's secrets and thus gained power over them. It might immediately follow a Great Hut rite or a mourning ceremony, or it might come independently, accorcling to the circumstances and the wishes of the men to get together. The men built a conical log house, decorated it, and chose a leader, who, according to Gusinde, always happened to be a shaman, although it was never specified that he should be. They also let in two older and trustworthy women, needed as actors. As in the Great Hut rite, novices were brought in blindfolded, then attacked by not one but two spirit impersonators, in this case wearing conical masks reaching to their shoulders and containing eyeholes. When his blindfold was removed the candidate was ordered to unmask the actors by grabbing at their heads. He did so, saw who they really were, and was warned never to reveal the secrets of the Men's House on pain of death. At one point there was a terrifying ruckus in the Men's House which was easily heard from the camp. The two older women, believed to be captives, had meanwhile pricked the insides of their noses with sharp sticks to make them bleed. They rushed out and cried to the onlookers that they had escaped the evil spirits' murderous attacks, but that all of the men had been killed. Later the men emerged, covered with their own blood let in a similar fashion and wiped on each other. They danced in front of the assembled women and children to show that they had come back to life, and that the evil spirits were dead. There followed much singing and dancing in the Men's House and the recital of the cycle of the Yoaloch brothers and their sister, which was never rendered in its entirety elsewhere, and of which fragments were given only in the Great Hut. This cycle contains elaborately detailed instructions for all kinds of behavior. Finally the men, including novices, painted and masked themselves to represent numerous spirits, including those of birds and animals, and appeared from the beach or forest. They q,anced on the open ground between the Men's House and the camp, moving sidewise, a~nd this went on until food was scarce, the actors and audience grew bored, or both. |
For more information on the Yamana people see:
-http://images.google.ch/imgres?imgurl=http://www.yip.org/~erhard/images/Yamana/
- http://www.bariloche.com.ar/museo/TIERRENG.HTM
- http://www.limbos.org/sur/yaman.htm (Spanish)
- http://itotd.com/articles/470/extinction-of-the-yamana/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaghan_language
- http://www.pearyhenson.org/dr_frederick_cook/yahgan.htm
- http://www.meyna.com/yahgan.html
- http://www.der.org/films/homage-to-yahgans.html
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Last change 23 March 2008
