Map of Tierra del Fuego showing Ona, Yahgan, Haush

The Haush or Manek'enk were an indigenous people who lived on the

Mitre Peninsula Mitre Peninsula is the easternmost part of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, located in the very southeast of the island, with its easternmost point, Cabo San Diego, 29 km northwest of Isla de los Estados, from which it is separated by Le M ...

of the

Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego (English: ''Big Island of the Land of Fire'') also formerly ''Isla de Xátiva''Ona or Selk'nam people who also lived on the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, and to the

Tehuelche people The Tehuelche people, also called the Aónikenk, are an indigenous people from eastern Patagonia in South America. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Tehuelche were influenced by Mapuche people, and many adopted a horseriding lifestyle. Once a ...

of southern mainland

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and gl ...

Name

''Haush'' was the name given them by the Selknam or Ona people, while the Yamana or

Yaghan people The Yahgan (also called Yagán, Yaghan, Yámana, Yamana or Tequenica) are a group of indigenous peoples in the Southern Cone. Their traditional territory includes the islands south of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, extending their presence int ...

called them ''Italum Ona'', meaning ''Eastern Ona''. Several authors state that their name for themselves was ''Manek'enk'' or ''Manek'enkn''.

Martin Gusinde Martín Gusinde (29 October 1886, in Breslau – 10 October 1969, in Mödling, Austria) was an Austrian priest and ethnologist famous for his work in anthropology, particularly on the native groups of Tierra del Fuego. He was one of the most nota ...

reported, however, that in the Haush language ''Manek'enkn'' simply meant ''people'' in general. Furlong notes that ''Haush'' has no meaning in the Selknam/Ona language, while ''haush'' means ''kelp'' in the Yamana/Yaghan language. Since the Selknam/Ona probably met the Yamana/Yaghan people primarily in Haush territory, Furlong speculates that the Selknam/Ona borrowed ''haush'' as the name of the people from the Yamana/Yaghan language.

Origins

Most authors believe that the Haush were the first people to occupy Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. The Haush are related to the Selknam and Tehuelche, and the three groups are presumed to have developed from a predecessor group in mainland Patagonia. The three groups were hunters, particularly of

guanaco The guanaco (; ''Lama guanicoe'') is a camelid native to South America, closely related to the llama. Guanacos are one of two wild South American camelids, the other being the vicuña, which lives at higher elevations. Etymology The guanaco g ...

s, and do not have any history of using watercraft. As the Haush and Selknam did not use watercraft, the

Straits of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural pass ...

would have been a formidable barrier to reaching the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. The Selknam had a tradition that a land bridge had once connected the island to the mainland, but later collapsed. Lothrop dismissed that as geologically implausible. Furlong suggested that canoe Indians (Yahgan or Alacalufe people) carried the Haush and Selknam across the Straits.

Territory

The Haush may have occupied all of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego several thousand years ago, before the Selknam reached the Island. Many place names in what was Selknam territory in historic times are identified as Haush. After crossing over from the mainland, the Selknam are presumed to have killed or absorbed most of the Haush, and pushed the remnants into the Mitre Peninsula. The Haush territory was split into two sub-areas. The northern sub-area, adjacent to Selknam territory, extended along the east coast of the island from Cape San Pablo to Caleta Falsa on Polycarpo Bay. The southern sub-area extended from Caleta Falsa around the eastern end of the Mitre Peninsula to Sloggett Bay. The northern sub-area has more favorable conditions for habitation. The southern sub-area, which is now virtually uninhabited, has harsher conditions, being colder and having more rain, fog and wind than does the northern sub-area. Furlong states that the Haush territory was from Cape San Pablo to Good Success Bay, with only an occasional trip as far west as Sloggett Bay, and that their principal settlements were at Cape San Pablo, Polycarpo Cove, False Cove, Thetis Bay, Cape San Diego and Good Success Bay. The Haush were

patrilineal Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...

and

patrilocal In social anthropology, patrilocal residence or patrilocality, also known as virilocal residence or virilocality, are terms referring to the social system in which a married couple resides with or near the husband's parents. The concept of locat ...

. They were divided into at least ten family units, each possessing a strip of land running from inland hunting grounds to the seashore. Nuclear families (five or six people) would migrate individually through their extended family's territory, occasionally joining up with other nuclear families. Groups from several territories would gather for rites, exchanging gifts, and exploiting stranded whales.

Culture

The Haush were

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

s. The Haush obtained a large part of their food from marine sources. Analysis of bones from burial sites on Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego indicate that the pre-European contact Selknam obtained most of the meat they ate from guanacos and other land animals, while the pre-European contact Haush, like the Yamana, obtained the majority of the meat they ate from marine sources, including seals and

sea lions Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...

. As guanacos were relatively scarce in Haush territory, they probably traded with the Selknam for guanaco skins. They shared many customs with their neighbors the Selk'nam, such as using small bows and stone-tipped arrows, using animal skins (from guanacos, as did the Selknam, but also from seals) for the few items of clothing they used (capes, foot coverings and, for the women, small "figleafs"), and an initiation ritual for male youth. Their languages, part of the Chonan family, were similar, although mutually intelligible "only with difficulty".

European contact

The first contact between the Haush and Europeans occurred in 1619, when the Garcia de Nodal expedition reached the eastern end of the Mitre Peninsula, in a bay that they named

Bahia Buen Suceso Bahía Buen Suceso is a small bay in Argentina's Tierra del Fuego province. It is known in English as Bay of Good Success, Bay of Success and Success Bay. It is located on the western shore of Le Maire Strait, which separates Tierra del Fuego a ...

(Good Success Bay). There they encountered fifteen Haush men, who helped the Spaniards secure water and wood for their ships. The Spaniards reported seeing fifty huts in the Haush camp, by far the largest gathering of Haush ever reported. A Jesuit priest on a ship that visited Good Success Bay in 1711 described the Haush as "quite docile". The first expedition led by James Cook encountered the Haush in 1769. Captain Cook wrote that the Haush "are perhaps as miserable a set of people as are this day upon earth." HMS ''Beagle'', with

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

aboard, visited Tierra del Fuego in 1832. Darwin noted the resemblance of the Haush to the "Patagonians" he had seen earlier in the voyage, and stated they were very different from the "stunted, miserable wretches further westward", apparently referring to the Yamana. The Haush population declined after European contact. In 1915, Furlong estimated that about twenty families, or 100 Haush, were left early in the 19th century, but later estimated that 200 to 300 Haush remained in 1836. By 1891, only 100 were estimated to be left, and by 1912, less than ten. At the time of European encounter and settlement, the Haush inhabited the far eastern tip of the island on

. Land to their west, still in the northeast of Tierra del Fuego, was occupied by the Ona or Selk'nam, a related linguistic and cultural group, but distinct.

Salesian , image = File:Stemma big.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms , abbreviation = SDB , formation = , founder = John Bosco , founding_location = Valdocco, Turin ...

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

ministered to the Manek'enk, and worked to preserve their culture and language. Father

José María Beauvoir José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacu ...

prepared a vocabulary.

Lucas Bridges Esteban Lucas Bridges (December 31, 1874, Ushuaia – April 4, 1949, Buenos Aires) was an Anglo-Argentine author, explorer, and rancher. After fighting for the British during World War I, he married and moved with his wife to South Africa, wher ...

, an Anglo-Argentine born in the region, whose father had been an

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

in Tierra del Fuego, compiled a dictionary of the Haush language

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Haush Indigenous peoples in Tierra del Fuego Hunter-gatherers of South America