European Encounters with the Yamana People of Cape Horn, before and after Darwin

Anne Chapman is a Franco-American ethnologist. She has done extensive fieldwork in Honduras with the Tolupan (Jicaque) since 1955 and the Lenca since 1965. In Tierra del Fuego (Argentina and Chile), she has worked with the last members of the Selk'nam (Onas) people, as well as with the only four descendants of the Yamana, from 1985 into the 1990s, who were knowledgeable about their tradition and spoke the ancient language. In 1969 and 1970, Chapman made a survey of former Indian (Haush) territory in southeastern Isla Grande, and in 1982 and 1985 she made the first archaeological surveys on Staten Island. Her most important work concerning the Fuegians is Drama and Power in a Hunting Society: The Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego, recently reedited in Spanish and published in French. She has also published La Isla de los Estados en la prehistoria: Primeros datos arqueológicos, The End of a World: The Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego, The Hain, Selk'nam Initiation Ceremony, and three chapters in Cape Horn 1882–1883: Rencontre avec les Indiens Yahgan, which contains some of the best photographs of the Yamana. She and Ana Montés made a film titled The Ona People: Life and Death in Tierra del Fuego, and twenty years later, in 1987 and 1988, she made a second film, Homage to the Yahgans: The Last Indians of Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn.

• INTRODUCTION; 1. 1578–1775: DRAKE ENCOUNTERS THE FUEGIANS: THE FIRST MASSACRE OF EUROPEANS: CAPTAIN COOK INAUGURATES A NEW ERA; 2. 1780–1825: MOBY DICKS IN TIERRA DEL FUEGO: THE WHALERS AND SEALERS ARRIVE; 3. 1826–30: tHE FIRST VOYAGE OF HIS MAJESTY'S SHIPS TO TIERRA DEL FUEGO: FOUR FUEGIANS TAKEN TO ENGLAND; 4. 1830–2: FUEGIANS IN ENGLAND: FITZ-ROY AND DARWIN MEET: THE BEAGLE RETURNS TO TIERRA DEL FUEGO WITH DARWIN; 5. 1833–6: tHE THREE FUEGIANS WITH DARWIN AND FITZ-ROY IN TIERRA DEL FUEGO: ADIOS FUEGUINOS; 6. 1838–43: USA AND GB ANTARCTIC EXPEDITIONS ARRIVE NEAR CAPE HORN AND MEET THE YAMANA; 7. 1848–51: ALLEN F. GARDINER SEARCHES FOR HEATHENS AND FINDS THE YAMANA; 8. 1852–8: tHE MISSIONARIES CARRY ON, JEMMY BUTTON IS LOCATED; 9. 1858–60: YAMANA VISIT THE KEPPEL MISSION: MASSACRE IN TIERRA DEL FUEGO; 10. 1860–9: tHE FIRST EPIDEMIC: THE MISSIONARIES SEEK A LOCATION: FOUR OTHER YAMANA VISIT ENGLAND; 11. 1869–80: tHE MISSIONARIES SETTLE IN USHUAIA: THE YAMANA ATTEMPT TO ADJUST; 12. 1881–2: fIRST SIGNS OF EPIDEMICS IN USHUAIA: ALAKALUFS KIDNAPPED TO EUROPE: NEWS OF FUEGIA BASKET; 13. 1882–6: tHE FRENCH ARRIVE, THEN THE ARGENTINES: THE EPIDEMICS BECOME UNCONTROLLED; 14. 1887–1900: oTHER FUEGIANS KIDNAPPED: THE NON-ENDING EPIDEMICS: 'IS GOD VERY FAR AWAY?'; 15. THE XX CENTURY: THE YAMANAS: USHUAIA, THEIR ANCIENT CAMP SITE, BECOMES A CITY.

Review of the hardback: 'The late Anne Chapman's well-written and researched volume chronicles the dramatic, at times deadly, encounters between indigenous people and European scientists, missionaries, and traders in the nineteenth century … many scholars will profit from reading its rich narrative.' William F. Sater, The American Historical Review