Ona Indians

The Selk'nam, also known as the Onawo or Ona people, are an indigenous people in the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile, including the Tierra del Fuego islands. They were one of the last native groups in South America to be encountered by migrant Europeans in the late 19th century. Settlement, gold mining and farming in the region of Tierra del Fuego were followed by the Selk'nam genocide. In the mid-19th century, there were about 4,000 Selk'nam; in 1916 Charles W. Furlong estimated there were about 800 Selk'nam living in Tierra del Fuego; with Walter Gardini stating that by 1919 there were 279, and by 1930 just over 100. In the 2017 Chilean census 1,144 people declared themselves to be Selk'nam. However, until 2020, they were considered extinct as a people by the government in Chile, and much of the English language literature. While the Selk'nam are closely associated with living in the northeastern area of Tierra del Fuego archipelago, they are believed to have originated as a people on the mainland. Thousands of years ago, they migrated by canoe across the Strait of Magellan. Their territory in the early Holocene probably ranged as far as the Cerro Benítez area of the Cerro Toro mountain range in Chile.