And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
This is one of the saddest articles..my heart is heavy for all that has
passed, for all that has been lost..Ish
Last of Argentina's Ona
Indians dies
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/americas/9906/03/BC-ARGENTINA-INDIAN.reut/index.html
June 3, 1999
Web posted at: 7:58 PM EDT (2358 GMT)
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -- The last of Argentina's
full-blooded Ona Indians has died, ending a 9,000-year history
of a tribe that was hounded by settlers and bounty hunters at
the tip of South America, authorities said on Thursday.
Virginia Choinquitel, 56, died of a heart attack on Wednesday
in Rio Grande, Tierra del Fuego, a priest in the town said.
Argentine anthropologist Miguel Angel Palermo told the daily
Clarin that the last Ona man died in 1995 and Choinquitel was
the last full-blooded Ona woman.
Her long-time friend, Roman Catholic priest Father Jose Zink,
confirmed that she was the last member of the Ona tribe.
"There are many people of mixed blood but to the best of our
knowledge she was the last full-blooded Ona," Zink said in a
telephone interview with Reuters from his Rio Grande home in
Tierra del Fuego.
The nomadic Ona people's roots in Tierra del Fuego date back
9,000 years.
Its people were short and stocky with Asiatic facial features and
were the victims of campaigns by armed settlers intent on
exterminating them. By the late 19th century, several missions
were established in Tierra del Fuego and nearby islands to
protect the remaining survivors.
But the ancient tribe continued to be threatened by epidemics
and bounty hunters.
About 300 Ona were left at the time of the most recent
government census of the native population taken in 1965 -
among them Virginia Choinquitel.
By 1970 there were only 10 Onas left in the world, according
to Palermo. <<END EXCERPT
