How did the Yagans live and why did they disappear — the most frost-resistant people on the planet

Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago of more than 40 thousand islands located in the southernmost part of the mainland of South America. It is very close to Antarctica, so the climate here is very harsh. The islands are rocky, with steep shores and very sparse vegetation. Icebergs float past them all year round, and icy winds knock them down. Despite this, the harsh region has been inhabited by people since ancient times. These are the Yagana Indians — a people who appeared out of nowhere and completely disappeared by the beginning of the 21st century.

It is worth saying that Tierra del Fuego is not the harshest region of the planet where people live. But no nation surprised travelers so much with its contempt for the cold as the fire-Earths. The archipelago received such an unusual name precisely because of its inhabitants. In 1520, the Portuguese navigator Fernand Magellan was looking for a passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and found himself among these islands.

During the day, rocky patches of land, shrouded in fog, seemed lifeless. But at night Magellan and his companions saw an incredible sight. The ships passed between South America and the largest island of the archipelago and the Portuguese saw that the inhospitable land lit up with hundreds of lights. The navigators associated this with volcanic activity and mapped a new toponym — Tierra del Fuego.

The inhabitants of the Old World could not even imagine that it was not hot lava, but a lot of bonfires. Yagans bred them every night to escape from the cold and cook their own food. Soon the Portuguese realized that these were still traces of human activity. Then Magellan did not moor to the dangerous rocky shore, and his ships passed by.

In 1578, the ognezemeltsev was rediscovered by the English captain Francis Drake. They saw both night lights and people looking at the ships with interest. But even this time the navigators did not linger and did not get acquainted with the islanders. For the next two centuries, the yagans were out of sight of researchers and forgotten about them.

Europeans got acquainted with them only in the 18th century. The German naturalist Georg Forster described this amazing people. The scientist was a member of the expedition of the British captain James Cook. In his diary, the German wrote that the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, despite the harsh climate, go naked or cover their shoulders with small skins.

They slept on bare rocks without any problems and did not feel any discomfort at all. Yagans and dwellings were built. They were primitive huts made of short poles, covered with branches and skins. Bonfires were lit near the entrance to each at night, which were seen from passing ships.

Another researcher, the Russian navigator Otto Kotzebue, having studied the yagans, made an assumption about their appearance. He wrote that most likely, this people once lived much further north, in a favorable climate. Most likely, the Yagans were displaced by other peoples, and they were forced to settle at the very edge of the earth. The islanders themselves, who had no written language, did not keep any chronicles and could not explain their origin.

Already today, Candidate of Biological Sciences anthropologist Stanislav Drobyshevsky has written several articles about the Yagans. He believes that for such resistance to cold, these people had to undergo strict natural selection. Having studied the ognezemelets in detail, the scientist noted their special physique.

The Yagans were short and heavy people. Although they turned out to be related to the Amazonian Indians, the external differences were significant. The inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego had a solid layer of subcutaneous fat. Thus they adapted to the cold climate. Most likely, the thin representatives of this people died quickly, and only the full ones survived. This is how genetic selection took place and the type of figure was formed.

But it's still not enough to survive. We need more effective protective functions. Drobyshevsky believes that in addition to the tendency to fullness, the yagans inherited a special metabolism. Maybe their blood vessels were arranged in a special way. According to the scientist, there were few of them near the surface of the body — they concentrated inside, warming vital organs.

The average annual temperature on the islands of the archipelago does not exceed +6 degrees Celsius. The ocean surrounding Tierra del Fuego is very cold and ice floes float in it all year round. Despite this, travelers noted that at the sight of outlandish ships, yagans bravely rushed into the icy water to take a closer look at the guests. The most amazing thing was that not only men splashed in the water, but also women with small children!

But resistance to cold weather could not save the Yagans from the misfortunes brought by foreigners. As it often happened, infections unknown to the fire-earths got to the islands, to which they had no immunity. Gradually, this people began to die out. Sheep brought by sailors also played a role. They multiplied on the islands and replaced the miniature guanaco llamas, which gave meat, milk and skins to the yagans.

When the guanacos disappeared, the yagans, suffering from hunger, began to hunt sheep. But those had owners — white people who began to crack down on the aborigines. The Ognezemeltsy were forced to settle near the shore and start hunting whales and seals. But even here everything was not easy. Fleets of whalers and hunters from Europe and the USA have cleaned up the population of marine mammals and completely deprived the yagans of food.

By the middle of the 20th century, the once numerous aborigines of Tierra del Fuego had become a rarity in the archipelago. The last representatives of the people desperately fought for their lives, but lost this fight. When the world community caught on and tried to save the Yagans, it was already too late. The last representative of this mysterious tribe died in 2022 from complications caused by the coronavirus.