End of a World, the Selknam of Tierra del Fuego
Description:
High graphic quality. This volume deals with the traditions of the Selknam and the personal relations of the author with her informants. The Selknam now are an extinct people that inhabited the main island of Tierra del Fuego, at the far end of South America. In the midst of this isolated, frigid and inhospitable country, they developed a nomadic life organized in small family groups or lineages that depended mainly on hunting the guanaco. Occasionally they gathered to bid farewell to their dead or to celebrate the remarkable Hain initiation ceremony. From 1880 onward, European colonization accelerated the tragic process of their extinction. Diseases from abroad as well as Indian hunters and vigilante groups were the main factors leading to their demise.