Mythologies of the Kawésqar Tribe

The Kawésqar, also known as the Kaweskar, Alacaluf, Alacalufe or Halakwulup, are an Indigenous people who live in Chilean Patagonia, specifically in the Brunswick Peninsula, and Wellington, Santa Inés, and Desolación islands northwest of the Strait of Magellan and south of the Gulf of Penas. Their traditional language is known as Kawésqar, a word that means “person” or “human being”; it is endangered as few native speakers survive. In the last century, their population was reduced by massacres and death from colonial diseases. Furthermore, their traditional way of life underwent a major transformation after contact firstly with European sailors and later with Chileans. In the 21st century, most of the Kawésqar live in the village of Puerto Edén and in the cities of Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas. It has been proposed that the Caucahue people known from colonial-era records either are ancient Kawésqar or came to merge with the Kawésqar. According to the 2002 census, there were 2,622 people in Chile who declared themselves to be members of the Kawésqar people. In the 2017 census, this figure rose to 3,448 people, and since Chile recognised them under Indigenous Law 19,253 of 1993, they are currently organised into 14 Indigenous Communities. The English and other Europeans initially adopted the name that the Yahgan (also known as Yámana), a competing Indigenous tribe whom they met first in central and southern Tierra del Fuego, used for these people: "Alacaluf" or "Halakwulup" (meaning "mussel eater" in the Yahgan language). Their own name for themselves (autonym) is Kawésqar.

The word Kawésqar means ‘men of skin and bone’, and is the name used to refer to a subgroup of the Alacalufe people. In the mid– 1940s, most Kawésqar spoke their native tongue and were only able to communicate with Spanish speakers through interpreters. Three decades later a ‘bilingual’ system was imposed on the group that made Spanish the main language and severely restricted the use of the indigenous language. Today, Kawésqar is spoken only in private, when outsiders are not present. The Kawesqars’ first contact with Western civilization came in 1526, when explorer Jofré de Loaysa’s expedition reached their territory. Their population remained at around 4,000 until the end of the eighteenth century. With the founding of Fuerte Bulnes in 1843, however, Chile began to exercise its possession by colonizing the area, which included the Magallanes region and the southern islands. From that time onward the Kawésqar were in constant contact with colonists, who brought both conflict and infectious diseases to which the natives had no immunity. By the end of the century, the indigenous group’s population had dwindled to around 500 people. By 1925, there were only 150 native Kawésqar left. In 1940, the Chilean government approved the Kawésqar Protection Law, which forced the relocation of the entire population to Puerto Edén, on Wellington Island. This made the people dependent upon assistance from the Central Government, hindering any effective process of acculturation. The Kawésqar population continued to decline, from 100 in 1946 to just 60 in 1953; by 1971, a mere 47 had survived. The harsh living conditions in Puerto Edén prompted many of the surviving Kawésqar to move to Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas in 1995. These ‘city Kawésqar’ lived by selling handicrafts, working in fishing and shellfish-gathering collectives, and receiving state benefits. Chile’s Indigenous Peoples Law recognizes the Kawésqar ethnicity among several groups whose cultural heritage and rights must be preserved and protected. The 2002 census registered 2622 Kawésqar people, representing 0.38% of the country’s indigenous population.

Chilean Patagonia is today recognised as one of the greatest refuges of wild nature in the world. In recent decades, with the creation of national parks and marine reserves, the state has placed huge areas under formal protection. But far from being an empty landscape, this territory has been continually traversed for at least six thousand years by canoe-faring, hunter-gatherer, Kawésqar nomads. These magnificent and pristine landscapes are home to hundreds of species of birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, plants, and fungi, which thrive within the forests, wetlands, glaciers, and in the innumerable fjords and channels of the Pacific Ocean. But this territory - Kawésqar Wæs - has always been the home of the Kawésqar. The territory, four times the size of Switzerland, was left in the pristine state it's found today when the last generation of nomadic Kawésqar were forced into sedentary lives in the cities during the 20th century, from where they and their children continue to dream of the sea. The Kawésqar indigenous communities have spent years trying to participate in decision-making at the governmental level in national parks, given that one of the greatest threats facing this territory today is that of abandonment. The creation of national parks without administration, regulation, financing, development strategies and management plans seriously endangers the conservation of these places, both environmentally and culturally. That is why informed participation is key, especially when there are still more than 500 Kawésqar living in this region of southern Chile. The Fundación Pueblo Kawésqar works to make visible the culture and living heritage of the indigenous Kawésqar peoples. Led and managed by Kawésqar, the foundation actively works to create cultural and rights initiatives in the hope that, in the not so distant future, Chilean society may truly recognise the presence, territory and culture of the Kawésqar peoples. It is also very important to make visible the permanent presence of the Kawésqar within their ancestral territory, giving them the opportunity to traverse these waters in their canoes once again, practice their traditional ways of life, and visit the places where their ancestors lived and live on conserving nature. Within the Kawésqar Wæs, there are 7 huge protected wilderness areas in addition to other, smaller and lesser known, but equally sizeable ones. The use of this (protected) territory today is, in practice, dedicated to boosting the economy. On the one hand is the tourism sector, which offers luxury experiences and extreme adventure in corners where "man has never before set foot"; on the other, intensive aquaculture and salmon farming, one of Chile's largest but most polluting export sectors. So, how can the Kawésqar exist within current Chilean society, looking from afar at a territory as much their home as foreign to them; as natural as it is exploited; as protected as it is abandoned?