Welcome to the Yagán Region. Here you will find interesting information about this Chilean Indigenous People.
The region contains four main subjects: People (History, Social Organization, environment), Language (Gramma, Vocabulary), Customs (Spiritual World, Rituals, Mythology) and Art. Use the Interactive Map to take an animated tour of this people´s region. The teachers and students will find contents (texts and images) that be able for Printing.
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Their canoes, called anán, were constructed with three large pieces of bark from trees. The canoes were the more elaborated element of the Yámana Handcraft and its more valuable property. Their life depended to have a canoe.
Sewn plates of crust to each other were maintained opened with a frame of rods of wood cleaved to means and retained On guard bent by crosspieces and longitudinal wood huts.
The floor was reinforced with more plates of crust and in the center a platform of earth or pebbles was made, on which ignited fire always stayed. The ones in charge to row were habitually the women, but when it was necessary also the men did. Except for accidents, they used to last six months to a year; the habitual time of preparation was October to February, when the crust could be come off the trees with facility.
The Yagán women also were superior basket makers, intricately interlacing rushes in their craft.
Harvesting shellfish was another of their common activities.
The females were also in charge of rowing the canoes, while the men dedicated themselves to fishing.
The women painted their faces with three colours: white, around the eyes, and the rest of the face with horizontal and black and red lines.
Ceremonies like the Chiejaus had specific facial paint patterns.
Men and women used bracelets made with beads of bones of birds and shells. While the men used them only on the ankles, the women wore them on the wrists and ankles.
In daily life, the Yagán women made baskets, bags of leather and bladders, to be used as containers, in addition to loops made of whale beard, according to the observations of the chronicler Bouganville.
Yagán vocabulary and phrases:
Hanúha: moon
Paléna: rain
Fóka: Fog
Yagashana: Present channel Murray. Thomas Bridges
Wákul: Sky
Sáeskin: Heart
Wahar: Vulva
Tapáera: two hared sea lion.
Ama: Sea lion.
Kéikus: leopard seal.
Káluh: Foreigner
Ushipin: Bay,
Yasála: Dog
Sápa: blood
Sima: Water
Kaméin: Arm
Yeni: Canoe made of tree trunks.
The Yagán people do not have an oral tradition about their origin, but they say that Watanuineiwa always existed because the celestial dome existed, only it was much closer to Earth than now.
In that time the women dominated them.
About their origin they tell the following legend:
In remote times many families arrived from the East. In company of that group the Yaolox family also arrived. The Yaolox brothers taught the other men how to use weapons and make tools. Simultaneously Lem arrived, the sun man and his Alainix brother, Rainbow and his wife Hanuxa, the moon woman. With their appearance they initiated a new form of existence, as if preparing the way for the coming of the real human beings, mankind.
The Yaolox were 3 brothers: two men and one woman. The youngest surpassed his older brother in all senses, and the woman Yaolox Tarnuxipa, was most intelligent of them all. The discovery of fire is attributed to the older brother.
The last Chiejaus took place in Assif, on Navarino Island. There, Masémikensh, a Yagán teacher, directed the young people's lessons, before their almost total extinction.
Father Martín Gusinde, ethnologist, was the only white man invited and as an ushipin initiate he participated in the ceremony.
During the ceremony the Yagán people sang to distract themselves, and to drive away to the Yetahite, enemy and malignant spirit, jealous of the accomplishments of the Chiejaus.
They also struck the walls of the Marma with sticks and branches, to frighten the spirit.
The dance was one of the favoured parts of the ceremony and it took place at the end of the night. Each dance received the name of the animal, which it imitated. " The Yagán people are true artists in the representation of these animals ", says Aureliano Oyarzún, who was present at such a ceremony.
The creation of all the existing one was known like Watauiwineiwa. In spite of having coincidence on the matter, Watauiwineiwa was not adored, according to as traditionally the dominant society it has understood the theism.
The healers or shamans were important for the Yagán people. They called them Yekamush, that could heal patients, cure emotional imbalances, and invoke the spirits.
Martín Gusinde, Ethnologer described as a wizard acted: "(...) the wizard arranges itself to act by means of a long song, calling in this form to the spirits so that they help to him. Nothing must bother nor distract its attention; it prefers to see single with that they request his Help to him, which feel or they tend before him. Between songs and smooth balances of the trunk "it is reuniting in a certain place the sickly matter", absorbing it violently with his lips. Immediately escupe in the palm of the hand and blows it later ".
The Yagán Flood.
This legend tells about how long ago the moon fell into the sea, making it rise, as the water in a bucket rises, when a great stone falls inside.
The only survivors of the flood were the lucky inhabitants of Gable island (in front of Port Williams in the Beagle channel), which broke off from its bed in the ocean and floated freely in the sea.
Soon to the surrounding mountains were covered with water and the people of Gable island saw nothing but water on the horizon.
The island did not go drift, it must have anchored somehow and when the moon eventually appeared it emerged with its load of human beings, guanacos and foxes, populating the world once again.
The Chiejaus was a veritable school for tribal customs, norms and knowledge necessary for the survival of the community. A fundamental principle in the life of these canoeists was learned:
"We, men and women, first of all must be good and useful to the community ".
The Chiejaus took place every five years and all the adolescents assisted. A marma, or cabin, was constructed for the occasion; the size of which depended on the number of godfathers, disciples and teachers.
The heads of families decided on the site where the marma was to be built, many months before.
This Yagán school could last up to five months, since its duration was not predetermined.
They proceeded as follows:
The director of the ceremony painted his body white with cross-sectional red lines. The participants were adorned with spots and lines of colours that represented different supernatural beings from the Yagán world.
They used neckless and red, black and white paintings, depending of the ocassion.
All this details would have important simbolic significations.
Both sexs would like to adorn themselves with paintings, necklaces, brecelets and ankle supports. The paintings could cover the face, the body and sometimes other members. The colors that would be used were the red one, the white and the black, creating simple designs based on rays and points very varied. The face and corporal painting formed part of many rituals and norms of courtesy. In addition it was used to communicate moods or the circunstances in which was its carrier.