The Ona People - PREVIEW

Описание: Purchase: http://www.der.org/films/ona-people.html Tierra del Fuego, "land of fire," was first discovered by Europeans early in the sixteenth century. A group of islands that had separated from the southern tip of the South American mainland long ago, Tierra del Fuego had probably been inhabited by different groups of Indians for at least 9000 years. The largest island in the zone, the "Great Island," now divided between Chile and Argentina, was the homeland of the Selk'nam Indians, sometimes known as the Ona. Until their extermination began in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, there were between 3500 and 4000 Ona on the island. In 1919, Father Martin Gusinde counted fewer then 300, and by 1930 less than 100 Ona remained. By 1977, when this film was released, Angela, the last full-blooded Ona Indian, had died.

Much of the film is based on Angela's accounts of the past and her reflections on the present, as well as on the recollections of several mestizo Indians. Interviews are combined with a wealth of old photographs to reconstruct the tragic history of the destruction of the Ona. Beginning in the 1880s when Europeans first came to the island in search of gold, the story moves through the introduction of large-scale sheep farming, and the rapid genocide that ensued. The killings were managed by a diverse cast of characters, including a Romanian, a Spaniard, a Yugoslavian, a Portuguese, and perhaps most unforgettably, a Scotsman named McLellan but commonly known as "Red Pig." Red Pig paid a pound sterling for an Indian's ears, and slightly more for an Indian woman's breasts. It was, in his words, "too much trouble" to civilize these Indians.

a film by Anne Chapman and Ana Montes de Gonzales
distributed by Documentary Educational Resources