The Selk'nam, also known as the Ona, are an indigenous people of Patagonia and the Tierra del Fuego islands in the southernmost part of South America. They have lived in this harsh and cold environment for about 10,000 years. They were primarily nomadic hunter-gatherers and relied on hunting for survival. Their main diet was guanaco (a type of camelid), seals, penguins, fish, and a variety of native plants.
Traditionally, the Selk'nam wore clothing made of guanaco skins, which protected them from the intense cold. The people in the picture are also wearing similar clothing. Their society was divided into specific roles between men and women. Men hunted, fought, and led the spiritual life, while women took care of household chores, raised children, and gathered plants.
The arrival of European settlers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries completely changed the way the Selk'nam lived. Europeans began to establish sheep ranches in Tierra del Fuego, encroaching on the Selk'nam's traditional hunting grounds. The Selk'nam had no concept of private property, so they called these sheep "white guanacos" and hunted them. In response, the settlers offered bounties for the extermination of the Selk'nam. They offered rewards for cutting off the Selk'nam's ears. This led to widespread genocide. Disease, land grabbing, and massacres reduced the Selk'nam's population from around 4,000 to fewer than 100 in just a few decades. Eventually, by 1930, the last members of the tribe had died out and they were officially declared extinct.
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