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Concept
Kawésqar
Summary
The Kawésqar, also known as the Alacalufe, Kaweskar, Alacaluf or Halakwulup, are an indigenous people who live in Chilean Patagonia, specifically in the Brunswick Peninsula, and Wellington, Santa Inés, and Desolación islands northwest of the Strait of Magellan and south of the Gulf of Penas. Their traditional language is known as Kawésqar; it is endangered as few native speakers survive.
It has been proposed that the Caucahue people known from colonial-era records either are ancient Kawésqar or came to merge with the Kawésqar.
The English and other Europeans initially adopted the name that the Yaghan, a competing indigenous tribe whom they met first in central and southern Tierra del Fuego, used for these people: Alacaluf or Halakwulup (meaning "mussel eater" in the Yaghan language). Their own name for themselves (autonym) is Kawésqar.
Like the Yahgan in southern Chile and Argentina, the Kawésqar were a nomadic seafaring people, called canoe-people by some anthropologists. They made canoes that were eight to nine meters long and one meter wide, which would hold a family and its dog. They continued this fishing, nomadic practice until the twentieth century, when they were moved into settlements on land. Because of their maritime culture, the Kawésqar have never farmed the land.
The total population of the Kawésqar was estimated not to exceed 5,000. They ranged from the area between the Gulf of Penas (Golfo de Penas) to the north and the Brecknock Peninsula (Península de Brecknock) to the south. Like other indigenous peoples, they suffered high fatalities from endemic European infectious diseases. Their environment was disrupted as Europeans began to settle in the area in the late 1880s. A 2022 extimate puts the total population of the Kawésqar before the 19th and early 20th century collapse at 3700 to 3900. The Little Ice Age, lasting from the 17th to the 19th centuries, may also had a negative impact on the Kawésqar population.
In the 1930s many remaining Alacaluf were relocated to Wellington Island, in the town of Puerto Edén, to shield them from pressures from the majority culture.
Official source
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