54. Possible Relatives in the Americas
The Ona (Selk'nam) People
by George Weber
The Ona tribal territory in the late19th century:
Of the Fuegian people, only the Haush are even less well-known than the Ona. The Ona were hunter-warriors who did not talk to outsiders that invaded their hunting grounds - not until their society and culture had been damaged irretrievably.
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Esteban Ishton (died 1968), one of the last full-blooded Onas In 2003 one person still claimed to speak Ona (and to be Ona) and 200 other claimed to be Ona but not speak the language. Such figures are claims and figures are, toput it mildly, doubtful and should not be given much credit. Certainly, the Ona are extinct culturally. |
Unlike the Yamana (whose traditional enemies they had been since time immemorial), the Ona were not primarily fishing people living from the sea, but inland and (sometimes) coastal hunters of bigger game, especially guanaco. Their main weapon was the bow-and-arrow and they they dressed in furs. Even their tents were made up of furs draped over a wooden frame.
As in all the other Fuegian tribes touched by outsiders from the mid-19th century onwards, the number of Ona has sunk steadily. Today they are extinct. Every now and then a "last Ona" is said to have died but these newspaper stories are impossible to verify.
1850: 3,600 Ona persons
1925: 279 Ona persons
1930: 100 Ona persons
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The relationship between the Haush and the Ona tribes has been assumed to have been hostile - but nothing is known for sure about it before the western settlers and explorers arrived in the 19th century. It is known, however, that the linguistic differences between the Ona and the Haush were quite pronounced. An Ona could understand a Haush only with a great deal of difficulty which does not speak for a close and recent association between the two.
The one physical characteristic of the Ona that sticks out (literally) is their average body height. This is among the highest in he world at 183 cm (6 ft.) for an average adult male.
Little is known of the Ona language. In 1999 unpublished papers and word lists left by the Fuegian missionary and anthropologist Prof. Martin Gusinde have been reported in Brittany and Peoples of Europe (Festschrift to Pere Denez edited by Herve ar Bihan, ISBN:2-910699-31-5 or 2-86847-391-1, 1999, pp. 427-439, Piotr Klafowski, "Ona legends, tales etc., an unpublished manuscript by E. Lucas Bridges from the manuscript remains of Martin Gusinda SVD". The author describes Gusinde's papers, now kept in Bonn, Germany, as follows:
The papers remained untouched since Gusinde's death in 1969, and as I saw them, they formed - literally - a roomful of papers, photographs, and negatives, lumped together with no order or arrangement. Their physical volume is simply staggering ... The Fuegian papers in the collection cover all the three languages of Fireland: Yahgan/Yamana, Ona/Selk'nam, and Alakaluf ... Each language is represented by voluminous glossaries on cards, or in notebooks so large that they well deserve the name "dictionaries".
The Ona language (along with Haush) has been classified as belonging to the Chono language family. Other linguists think it is a language isolate. See also Fuegian and Patagonian languages.
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Prof. Martin Gusinde (1886-1969) Born Wroclaw, Poland (then Breslau), 29 October 1886, died Mödling (Lower Austria), 10 October 1969, ethnologist, anthropologist, missionary. University professor in Washington and teacher at the St. Gabriel Mission (Missionshaus St. Gabriel) near Mödling. Research into the customs of the natives in Tierra del Fuego, became a member of the Aamana tribe, expeditions in Central Africa, was first to visit the Ayome Pygmies in New Guinea in 1956. Gusinde worked in Tierra del Fuego from 1911 to 1924. Work titles (Gusinde wrote in German, some of his titles
may be available in English translations): Most photographs reproduced here were made by Prof. Gusinde, without whom there would be precious little information or photographs on any Fuegian tribe before they had lost their native culture. . |
Missionaries have translated a prayer into Ona:
Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen. (2) Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God. Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
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Ona hunters posing with their weapons for the photographer Photograph by Prof. Gusinde, early 20th century |
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The Ona managed to avoid contact with outsiders longer than any other Fuegian group - with the possible exception of the little-known Haush tribe whose geographical isolation "behind the Ona lines" may have sheltered them from outside intrusions initially). The Ona were fierce hunters and not to be trifled with. FitzRoy and Darwins Fuegian captives (from the Yamana tribe, were terrified of the "Oens men" (as they called them) and warned outsiders about their fierceness.
Those western outsiders, British, Spanish, Chileans, Argentinians, first killed the Ona's food animals when they established large ranches on Ona hunting grounds. The Ona had no concept of private property or of ranching and killed the sheep of the ranchers as a matter of course. The ranchers, in turn, hired gunmen to kill the "thieves" who, to claim their bounty money, had to show the cut off ears of their Ona victims. This requirement was later changed to the entire head of a dead Ona, as some earless Onas apparently had survived.
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A group of Ona warriors Photograph by Prof. Gusinde, early 20th century |
The Ona tribe was split into 39 distinct territories held by extended families or bands. There is no information on how ancient this split was or how flexible its territories. These bands were "ruled" by the male head of the family - there was no higher overall tribal authority. There was band exogamy and strict prohibition of consanguinity but apart from this, the Ona, male and female, had complete freedom to marry whom they wished. Monogamy was the rule (though sometimes limited forms of polygamy were tolerated). The newly-married couple usually lived with the band of the husband.
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An Ona family group on the move Photograph by Prof. Gusinde, early 20th century |
The Ona did not have what we would call a well-developed religion. There was no supreme spirit and any supernatural beings appeared only in the Ona creation myth as part of a remote past, without direct relevance to the here and now. There was, however, a rather ill-defined and vague sort of special spirit, Termaukel, who was addressed only in time of severe illness. And there were mythological ancestors, forest and other more low-level spirits. The Ona shamans was called xon or yohon who were "called" by a dream and had to learn their craft from older shamans over a period of some years. Each shaman worked independently and there was frequent, sometimes violent, competition. The shamans were responsible for the weather, a very imporant factor inTierra del Fuego.
Society was guided by three parallel layers of experienced and trained people (who sometimes could be women):
- Xo'on were the shamans, healers who also had power of war and peace and controlled the ceremonies so important in Ona life
- Lailuka were the people who kept the tribal memories and traditions, who knew and could tell the mythological tales and stories; like the shaman, the Lailuka were also respected and feared for their contact with supernatural powers
- K'mal were the headmen or chiefs who were respected for their agem experience and knowledge
The Ona had elaborate initiation and other rites. The best known was an impressive male initiation ceremony called Hain:
The young males coming of age were led into to a dark hut where they were attacked by "spirits", i.e. disguised shamans. The children were taught to fear these spirits and threatened with them if they misbehaved. After this first day, there were various related ceremonies - males showing their "strength" in front of women by fighting spirits (who were other males but the women were not supposed to know this, but surely did) in some mock-fights. Each spirit had its typical actions, words, and looks.
A Hain could continue over a long time, spread over a year even on occasions. The ceremony would end with the final fight against the strongest and worst of all the spirits. Hains were often started when there had been a bonanza of food (e.g. the stranding of a whale) and so had something festive and good-humoured about it. Spectators from many bands gathered, separated in male and female groups. Special "spirits" went to female encampments toprtend to scare the women - amd in fact cause hilarity and that certain soupçon of frisson.
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Photograph by Prof. Gusinde, early 20th century |
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Photograph by L.E. Bridges, early 20th century |
Christian missionaries established themselves in the late 19th century initially to save the Ona, as they saw it. The missionaries succeeded in stopping the worst abuses sof the Ona by ranchers and other immigrants but they could not succeed in their aim to halt cultural disintegration. Ona culture died during the first two decades of the 20th century. Physical extinction took some decades longer. When Gusinde - himself a missionary - took most of the photographs shown here, the process of cultural extinction had long been under way and was accelerating. The pictures were staged with the photographers asking their subjects to show what they used to do and and how they did it "in the old days". These photographs do not show a living culture.
The missionaries meant well, they wanted to provide housing and food for the natives and they did provide some protection from the often vicious ranchers and their hired guns, but the Ona could not and would not live other than in their traditional way of life. As happened countless times all over the world at that time and later, the "primitives" to be "civilized" fell prey to diseases to which the missionaries, ranchers and other outsiders were immune. ut the "primitives" were not.
Web-sites with more information and illustrations on the Ona:
- http://www.limbos.org/sur/haus.htm
- http://www.victory-cruises.com/patagonian_indians.html
- http://www.trivia-library.com/c/extinct-ancient-societies-tierra-del-fuegians.htm
- http://www.limbos.org/sur/selkn.htm
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Last change 1 March 2007
