The interaction between foragers and representatives of the Western society did not always end in the acculturation or the mere displacement of people. In fact the classic result was the extermination of the foragers. As an example, the case of the Selk’nam hunters and gatherers will be introduced and discussed. The Selk’nam were a terrestrially oriented society of foragers who inhabited the steppes and prairies of the northern part of the island of Tierra del Fuego, in the southern tip of South America. Their subsistence was based on the hunting of a middlesized ungulate - the guanaco (Lama guanicoe), a variety of birds (Chloephaga sp., Phalacrocorax sp.), and sea mammals (Otaria byronia, Arctocephalus australis). These foods were complemented with gathered plants and shellfish. Stranded whales also provided meat and especially blubber. The latter was a basic food for people living in the cold habitats of Tierra del Fuego. The Selk’nam had developed a system of hunting territories in which groups of individuals had the right to exploit fixed portions of the land. They were highly mobile within these territories and formed aggregation camps that were mainly used for initiation ceremonies and the exchange of goods. The initiation ceremonies - many times associated with the stranding of a whale, that is, when there was plenty of food available - constituted the occasion when territorial limits were abolished. It was also possible to hunt and gather at other territories but only under conditions of dietary stress. To hunt in a different territory without authorization of the owners usually produced armed conflict between bands. It is not known how old this system was, but apparently it was a good regulator of the distribution of people and resources.
The archaeological research on the foragers that were living in the region before they were called Selk’nam shows that these people were interacting with other societies, for example, with the so-called ‘canoe people’ who inhabited the southern and southwestern channels of what today are Chile and Argentina since more than 6000 years ago. Interactions with these and other societies existed during several centuries, and yet the archaeological record does not show major changes in the overall cultural configuration. In general, contact between forager societies could be sometimes violent, but it was relatively stable in the long term. Transformations occurred and the owners of the land changed, but the forager way of life remained. It is not possible to know exactly how many changes of this kind took place through the centuries before the European contact in the north of Tierra del Fuego, but it is clear that a basic subsistence mode persisted. However, this situation was going to change. At the end of the sixteenth century a new process of contact, this time with Europeans, started. During the following three centuries only ephemeral contacts occurred between European sailors and explorers and the Selk’nam, most of which occurred in the coasts of the Strait of Magellan. These contacts were usually violent. Finally, at the end of the nineteenth century, the introduction of sheep ranches began an aggressive process of usurpation of the hinterland of the Selk’nam, a process that prompted a number of linked changes. The Selk’nam were displaced from their birth territories, losing contact with the geographical features and subsistence resources which they were accustomed to. Under those conditions, at some point they began to hunt the sheep introduced by the ranchers, calling them ‘the white guanacos’. Retaliation of the ranchers was immediate. The killing of men and the displacement of the survivors, mainly women and children, to Salessian missions was the classic form that took this response. The remaining Selk’nam moved to the central part of the island, where a forested environment provided some protection. One of the reasons was that the forest was not considered economically interesting by the ranchers, who preferred open sheep habitats. One side effect of this concentration of Selk’nam bands in the forest was a complete disruption of the territorial system, a situation that resulted in systematic violence among members of different bands. Thus, internal warfare became an important factor in the process of Selk’nam extermination. Individuals were attracted by the offer of a roof and food at the missions, and began to congregate there at least on a temporary basis. The stage was set for the final blow, which was produced by the introduction of infectious diseases. The concentration of people in the missions, people who lacked immunity against European diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, or smallpox, was the crucial factor. Under the conditions imposed by the missionaries, the transmission of disease was both efficient and quick. In less than 20 years the social organization of the Selk’nam was transformed in ways that were not adequate to deal with the new situation of contact with a society that was so different from theirs. The few survivors took difficult jobs in the ranches, for example, as horse-breakers. A few decades after the initial contact with the ranchers, most of the pure blood Selk’nam were gone, and their culture was completely lost. Similar events and processes involved other cultural groups in Tierra del Fuego and in southern Patagonia, and the result was always the social and physical extermination of the local foragers. With slight differences in the timing and the actors, similar processes were documented in different parts of the world. The forager way of life was not well suited to deal with the world market.
World History
