Ángela Loij López ( – 18 May 1974), baptized as Ángela Gómez, was an Argentine-Chilean woman considered to be the last surviving individual of full-blooded Selkʼnam (Ona) descent, an indigenous group that resides in

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South America, South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main is ...

. As a young woman, she married Nelson Qànqòt, a

Haush The Haush or people were an Indigenous people who lived on the Mitre Peninsula of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. They were related culturally and linguistically to the Selkʼnam (also known as Ona) people who also lived on the Isla Gran ...

baptized by missionaries as Toribio, with whom she had two daughters and a son: Víctor Nelson (born 1919), Laura Soto (born 1922), and Luisa Nelson (born 1926). She participated in a traditional Hain ceremony documented in 1924 by Austrian ethnologist

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 Fuegians. He was one of the most notable anthropologists in Ch ...

. During the late 1930s, she joined missionaries and was baptized to leave her conflictive relationship with her husband. All three of her children died in 1938 of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

without further descendants. In 1955, she married José Isaías Ule, a young Chilean worker who died in 1969, after which she inherited his house, where she lived on until he died. In her later years, she was studied by anthropologist

Anne Chapman Anne MacKaye Chapman (January 27, 1922 – June 12, 2010) was a Franco- American ethnologist who focused on the people of Mesoamerica writing several books, co-producing movies, and capturing sound recordings of rare languages from the Northern ...

. Loij was born at the Estancia Sara ranch, north of

Río Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Me ...

, where her father, Loij, worked as a shepherd. She had one brother, Pascual. Her grand-niece, Amalia Gudiño, became a nurse and was elected as a deputy in the

Argentine Chamber of Deputies The Chamber of Deputies (), officially the Honorable Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Nation, is the lower house of the Argentine National Congress (). It is made up of 257 national deputies who are elected in multi-member constituencies c ...

in 1995, becoming the first indigenous person to serve as a deputy in Argentina. Loij was found dead in her home in May 1974, victim of a stroke she suffered at dawn. A school in the

Río Grande Department Río Grande Department () is a department of Argentina in Tierra del Fuego Province, Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List o ...

was named in her honour.

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* Selkʼnam people Indigenous people of the Southern Cone 1900 births 1974 deaths People of Selkʼnam descent People from Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego Last known members of an Indigenous people {{Argentina-bio-stub

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