KRISTINA R. GADDY
  • Books
    • Well of Souls
    • Flowers in the Gutter
  • Writing
  • Open Stacks Blog
  • About
    • Support My Writing
  • Contact

Come in, the stacks are open.

Ghosts at the Edge of the World

11/24/2016

0 Comments

 
     At the southernmost tip of South America, the Andes mountain range plummets into the ocean and collides with the pampas plains of Argentina. Here, on the island of Tierra del Fuego, the wind whips across the landscape, the Straight of Magellan churns; the beauty of nature collides with the harsh realities of an Antarctic climate. For thousands of years, the Ona tribe called this place home. But as European settlers expanded throughout South America, they took the land the Ona lived on, systematically killed the Ona, and diminished their way of life. Finally, in the 1970s, the last person of full Ona ancestry died.  
Picture
The land of Tierra del Fuego, 2007.
Images above and left from Charles W. Furlong's article on the Ona and Haush from 1915. 
     This Thanksgiving, as Native Americans are fighting for clean water and clean air here in the United States, I wanted to feature images of the Ona, with some historical and cultural context, as a reminder of the cultures and ways of life that have been destroyed because of a lack of understanding and respect for people that are labeled different and other.
Picture
     The Ona, sometimes referred to as Selk'nam, lived on the eastern half of Tierra del Fuego, part of Argentina. They hunted guanaco, primarily with bows and arrows, which provided a source of food and clothing. They also fished and gathered edible berries as they moved around the island, staying at a location for a couple of weeks, and then walking to a new area. 
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
     In 1907, Charles Wellington Furlong went on assignment for Harpers to write about the people at the edge of the world. He was definitely a Victorian man, with a "noble savage" view of the four tribes he encountered, writing that the Ona were, "man as he lived in pristine days...living today the life of the Stone age." He respected them, and saw how they had been mistreated, commenting that the tribe's population had dwindled from over 3,000 to 500 in 30 years "because they possessed the land the white man coveted for his sheep and had courage strong enough to oppose him." What he doesn't spell out is that during that 30 year period at the turn of the 20th century, Europeans systematically killed Ona by basically hunting them. And as much as Furlong respected the Ona and their traditions, he believed that Christianity and morals, along with land and guanaco, could "the people would be saved and the tribe preserved." 
     Items he collected in Patagonia are now at the American Museum of Natural History. 
Picture
Picture
     Three  other men around the turn of the century created amazing visual records of the Ona: Samuel K. Lothrop, Alberto Maria De Agostini, and Martin Gusinde.
​     Lothrop was an anthropologist and archeologist who specialized in the cultures of South America. In 1924, he travelled to Tierra del Fuego to view the Ona and the other indigenous tribes. His images show the Ona living traditionally, yet with a mix of traditional and European clothes and tools. 
Photos taken by Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, 1925. Courtesy of the National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian Institution. 
     Father Roberto Maria de Agostini was born near the Alps in Italy, and after becoming a priest was sent to Punta Arenas in Chile. There, he started working to preserve the culture of the Ona. His photographs feature the body-painting that Furlong described: "The nearest approach to writing is drawing, which in a crude way they apply to their faces, bodies, and limbs. This is done with three colors -- black, cream-white, and a dull orange red ochre." 
Photos taken by Father Alberto Maria De Agostini, 1935. Courtesy National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian Institution. 
     This last set of photos is the most beautiful, and the most haunting. Taken by Martin Gusinde in the 1920s, they depict some of the ceremonies of the Ona. Furlong wrote, "There are certain mystic rights and necromancy pracised by the Ona, which up the present time I am not at liberty to reveal." I can't be sure if he was being coy because he didn't know or didn't understand the rituals or was simply making things up, or if he had in fact seen rituals that he didn't feel was appropriate to discuss. Gusinde, a German priest and ethnologist, did view these ceremonies and took over 1000 photos of the Ona, Yamana, and Kawesqar. 
     Warning - one of the reasons that Furlong might not have discussed these rituals is because they involve nudity, so the photos might not be appropriate to view at work. 

If you want to see more, consider the photographs of Martin Gusinde, collected in The Lost Tribes of Tierra del Fuego, watch ​"The Ona People: Life and Death in Tierra del Fuego," or listen to the haunting songs and voices of Ona alive in 1966, interviewed by Anne Chapman and Alan Lomax. 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Come in, the stacks are open. 

    Away from prying eyes, damaging light, and pilfering hands, the most special collections are kept in closed stacks.  You need an appointment to view the objects, letters, and books that open a door to the past. 

    Here, pieces of material culture are examined in the light. The stacks are open. ​Read the stories behind objects and ephemera found in private collections, archives, and museums. 

    Archives

    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    August 2019
    July 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    16th Century
    17th Century
    18th Century
    19th Century
    20th Century
    21st Century
    African American History
    African History
    Alcohol
    Alcohol History
    America
    Animal
    Appalachian
    Art
    Bad Science
    Baltimore
    Banjo
    Banjo Collector's Gathering
    Banjo History
    Banya Obbligato
    Banya Prei
    Books
    Canada
    Cancer
    Cat
    Celebrations
    Chesapeake Bay
    Chicago
    Christmas
    Circus History
    Civil War
    Clown
    Cold War
    Colonial History
    Communism
    Conjoined Twins
    Cook Books
    Crab
    Creole-bania
    Culinary History
    Devil
    Drumming
    Dutch History
    Easter
    England
    Eugenics
    Exhibits
    Fiddle
    Film
    Food
    Food History
    France
    "Freak Show" History
    German American
    German History
    Goucher College
    Halloween
    Hockey
    Hollywood
    Hospital
    Human Development
    James Ford Bell Library
    Jewish History
    Lincoln
    Lost Baltimore
    Lost History
    Lying In
    Lying-In
    Magazine Covers
    Map
    Maritime History
    Maroons
    Maryland
    Maternity
    Medical History
    Medical Procedures
    Medicine
    Metropolitan Museum
    Midwifery
    Minstrelsy
    Monsters
    Museum
    Music
    Native American History
    New Jersey
    New Orleans
    Newspapers
    New York City
    Obstetrics
    Ozy
    Patent
    Photography
    Plain Weave
    Political History
    Politics
    President
    Print
    Psychology
    Public Transportation
    Science
    Sheet Music
    Skansen
    Skeleton
    South American History
    Sports
    Stedman
    Streetcar
    Suffragettes
    Suriname
    Sweden
    Swedish History
    Theater
    The Knick
    Third Reich
    Traditional Music
    Traditions
    Transportation History
    Tri-racial Isolate
    Typeface
    Typography
    U.S.
    USA
    U.S. History
    Valentine
    Vegetarian
    Vegetarianism
    Victorian
    Violin
    Virginia
    Vodou
    Weaving
    West Africa
    West Virginia
    Winti
    Wisconsin
    Witch
    Witches
    Women
    Women's History
    World History
    World War II

    Picture

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Books
    • Well of Souls
    • Flowers in the Gutter
  • Writing
  • Open Stacks Blog
  • About
    • Support My Writing
  • Contact