ACARREO LIBRE

The harpoon was probably the most conspicuous tool made and used by the Yâmana^. It had a bone point, which could vary from one-barb to multi-barbed, and a long wooden haft. There were two different types o f harpoon: one had a fixed point, which was firmly attached to the haft, the other type had a detachable point with a distal protuberance that helped in tying it to the haft by a strap which unfolded when the point hurt the prey (Orquera and Piana

1999a: 55).

Other bone tools were wedges (used to cut wood o f bark), punches, drinking tubes, etc. Buckets and jars o f leather or bark were also made. Baskets made o f bullrush were often used by the women. Shells and some big mussels were used as knives, they were sometimes halted using a beach pebble (ibid: 331, 348).

Fishing was carried out with lines made o f algae or with braided tendons, without fishhooks, and with a pebble which acted as a weight and a feather stem in which the bait was inserted. When the fish swallowed the bait, the fisher-woman gently and swiftly pulled the line with one hand and trapped the fish with the other hand (ibid: 152). Although this technique did not require a sophisticated artefact gear, it required instead the development of technical skills to carry out the task with effectiveness.

The Yâmana used slings, traps and clubs for hunting birds. Two-forked and four- forked pincers were used to collect limpets, mussels, spider crabs and sea urchins (ibid: 231). Bows and arrows were used to hunt guanacos, but the information about the intensity and frequency o f their use is not clear (ibid: 219).

The information about the tools made o f lithic raw material is contradictory: although these kinds o f artefacts were found in archaeological sites o f the “contact period” (Orquera and Piana 1999a:50-51), the ethnographic accounts about this time do not mention the existence o f these artefacts. This may have been related to the artefacts’ simplicity, which may have not called the observers’ attention, or to the fact that they were being replaced at least partly by iron and glass pieces brought by the Europeans.

Canoes were made with bark slabs sawn to each other, covering a structure o f wooden transversal shafts and longitudinal boards. The floor was covered with bark slabs and in the middle an earth, pebbles and/or shells platform was placed, were fire was always kept burning. The canoes were o f 3 to 5,5 m. long, and could carry about seven persons. They had

This section excludes body painting technology, which is presented and analysed in chapter 4.

^ From 6,000 to 4,000 BP, these were one o f the most com m only decorated types o f artefacts, but later such tradition vanished, and these instruments were not decorated during the contact period.

no keel or helm, and speeifie teehnieal skills were neeessary to row them properly (Hyades and Deniker 1891), whieh only the women usually mastered. After 1880, eanoes made of exeavated trunks and also with wooden tablets were introdueed in the Yâmana region. Both these new models eame from the A laealuf region and by the end o f the XIX eentury had replaeed the bark eanoes (Orquera and Piana 1999b: 235).

In relation to the teehnieal knowledge and skills, there were persons who had greater ability than others for eertain tasks, and due to this they enjoyed eertain prestige. There were even some speeifie terms to name persons who were partieularly skilful in the produetion o f eertain objeets. Nevertheless, there were no speeialised eraftsmen who would make objeets by request or produee goods that would be destined for exehange (Gusinde 1986: 492).

2.3.6. Shelter.

Two kinds o f huts were built by the Yâmana. One had a half-sphere form, and it was made with thin intertwined branehes eovered by foliage. The other one had a eonie shape and it was made with trunks o f medium thiekness (Gusinde 1986: 361). Both had cireular floor plan and a diameter o f 3 or 3,5 m. The entranee was not elosed, or at most was eovered with a hanging hide. A hearth was permanently burning’^ in the eentre o f the hut, around which the occupants squatted^'. The huts could last during various years, they were never destroyed (except when somebody died in them) and were reoecupied by the same or by different persons. Huts o f much bigger size were used for carrying out the kina and chiéjaus

ceremonies (see below).

Fire was used for heating, cooking, for som e technological activities including baking pigments and for making smoke signs.

“ Various residues were accumulated around this space, forming afterwards the archaeological shell-middens w hich are abundant in the Beagle channel region.

P late 2 .8 . Y âm an a p e o p le w ith ca n o e (p ostcard p u b lish ed b y Z a g u ier and U rruty).

P late 2 .9 . Y â m a n a c a n o e and artefacts (M iss io n S c ie n tifiq u e du C ap H orn, in C hapm an et al. 1995

^