The road west from Puerto Williams is a dusty, gritty trail that wends its way hugging the south coast of the Beagle Channel - up, down and over hillocks, on and on it goes for over 50 kilometres. Biking on dirt roads involves real concentration: front and rear wheels take on a life of their own when hitting a patch of loose gravel. They slew suddenly this way or that, putting the heart crossways on you as the bike becomes unstable and you fear that at any instant, you’re going to lose control and tumble over. But take it handy, stay under 40 and you’re ok. Besides, on this road, there’s way too much to see, way too much beauty to be rushing it.
On this early summer’s day, the water in the channel is still and glistening in the sunlight. The sea is a mirror to all the world above it. The mountains of Argentinian Tierra del Fuego on the far side are jet black and snow-capped; the sky is filled with big frothy clouds but sufficiently broken for there to be large patches of blue too. In the still water of the Channel, the world is presented twice over.
On my side, the vegetation is surprisingly lush coming from ground so apparently dry and poor looking. There are banks of firetrees with their bright orange-red flower. A group of condors circle above - wheeling in huge arcs, their wings outstretched and unmoving but holding them aloft on the wind, gliding effortlessly, as though by magic.
As I bike along, I pass numerous apparently abandoned farm homes; timber and tin shacks for the most and very pretty looking but hard places to live, I suspect, in the winter. There’s no question of electricity out here - gas if you haul the cylinders from Puerto Williams; logs otherwise.
Around a corner, I come to a sign: Cementerio Indigenas da Bahía Mejillones. Since arriving in Isla Navarino, I had been curious as to the Yahgan people, the indigenous of the island. A small settlement beside Puerto Williams, named Villa Ukika, was, I was told, where they lived separately, though there has clearly been much assimilation into the wider Chilean population. It appeared that the Yahgan of here, and the Ona, or Selk’nam people, of Tierra del Fuego, had ceased to exist in any meaningful way outside of images on tourist tat.
Recent scholarship has found evidence that the Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego, the company that recruited Irish and Scots sheep farmers, funded the murder of Selk’nam in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, paying £1 for every one shot, the evidence for payment being the presentation of a severed hand or ear.
In the cemetery, large plots were enclosed by low picket fencing but there were no individual markers or names, save for one plot in which a weathered board announced that the plot was for the Familia Torres, with occupants dating from 1931 to 1946, and one later interred but the date indistinct.
At the back of the cemetery, there was a single grave, a new arrival in a plot delineated by new timber edging and newly planted flowers, some plastic. Behind the grave was a tiny glass-fronted shrine with a small pitched roof. Inside were more flowers, a statue of the virgin and a framed photograph: a picture of a woman glancing sideways and showing a wonderful face, weathered and lined but alert and with glistening, bright eyes.
A cross stated that she was Cristina Calderón Harban, and gave her dates as May 24th, 1928 to February 16th, 2022. She lies in one of the most beautiful places I have seen.
I did not know it when I stumbled upon her grave but Cristina Harban was the last full-blooded Yahgan and was known to all as Abuela, or Grandmother. She was a basket-weaver, ethnographer and cultural activist, and lived in Villa Ukika. She had 10 children and 19 grandchildren. One of her daughters, Lidia González, was elected to the Chilean Constitutional Convention and served as deputy vice-president.
The convention was designed to write a new constitution for Chile, replacing the 1980 constitution, devised by the Pinochet regime and amended no fewer than 52 times since. The new body had 154 members who were elected and was heavily politicised, unlike Ireland’s citizens’ assemblies, on which it was partly modelled and which comprise 100 randomly selected citizens.
Last September, the Chilean electorate, by a convincing margin of 62 per cent to 38 per cent, rejected the convention-drafted new constitution. One of the main reasons (among many) was a sense that by saying Chile should be a “plurinational” state, thereby recognising the rights of its 13 per cent indigenous people, a nightmare of rowing over land and resources would open up.
The weekend I arrived back in Chile, Art O’Leary, secretary general of Ireland’s electoral commission and a veteran of our citizens’ assemblies, also arrived in Santiago. He was the latest in a line of politicians, civil servants and academics from Ireland come to Chile to explain how our experiment in participatory democracy had worked.
O’Leary talked to, among others, students at the school of law at the Diego Portales University, telling them that the Irish experience was that citizens’ assemblies created “a safe and respectful environment” in which difficult conversations could be had.
“There was no opinion that could be wrong,” he told the students. “We had zero tolerance for any type of aggression or contempt towards individuals. They were entitled to their opinions and were afforded every opportunity to contribute to the process . . . I saw powerful and real interest from the attendees in the topic of citizen participation and the best way in which the State can be involved in the decisions of its citizens.”
At the celebrations in Puerto Williams marking the town’s 69th birthday, which I also happened to stumble upon, I noticed that the regional governor George Flies gave a particularly warm embrace to an elderly woman, very obviously a member of the indigenous community, leaning down to hug her warmly - a gesture she reciprocated with equal warmth.
On the ferry back to Punta Arenas - the Yagan ferry, no less - the walls of the cafe area are lined with sepia photographs of Yahgan: naked and semi-naked people living in the wild, their bodies painted and carrying primitive tools and weapons. Images of interest to anthropologists.
A new photo portrait had been added recently: that of Cristina Calderón Harban.
A tribute to the last native speaker of the Yagan people, says the inscription under a shot of her, looking sideways, over her spectacles, and out on a world of which she is no longer part.
Peter Murtagh will be writing regularly as he proceeds to Alaska. You may follow him also on Instagram (Tip2Topadventure), Facebook (Peter Murtagh) and Twitter (@PeterMurtagh)
