Through my writing, I have explored various topics related to Croatian emigration. I was particularly drawn to untold stories or those that can be viewed from multiple perspectives. Some authors in Chile and Argentina have dealt with the subject of the Patagonian Indigenous peoples, as Patagonia spans several southern provinces of both countries, and they also share Tierra del Fuego. The Yaghan were the southernmost people in the world, living in the southern part of Tierra del Fuego and on the even more southern islands, all the way to Cape Horn. It is estimated that they arrived there around 10,000 years ago, but they began to disappear at the end of the 19th century with the arrival of Europeans, who brought them viruses like measles, smallpox, and typhus. By hunting sea lions, they also reduced their food sources. The last full-blooded Yaghan representative, Cristina Calderon, passed away in 2022 at the age of 93 due to the COVID virus. Cristina lived in her little house in the Ukika settlement on the outskirts of the southernmost city in the world, Puerto Williams, located on Navarino Island, south of Tierra del Fuego.
Branka Bezić Filipović with Cristina Calderon in 2018
The last Yaghan woman to live a traditional nomadic life was Rosa Yagan Yagan, married Miličić. A series of interviews with Rosa was published by Chilean academic of Croatian descent Patricia Štambuk Mayorga in her book “Rosa Yagan, the Last Link”, and the translation was printed in Split by Naklada Bošković. Rosa Yagan was the wife of José Miličić, so it was a challenge for me to write the book “José Miličić, the Last Chief of the Yaghan Tribe”, which was also published by Naklada Bošković.
In December 2023, I was in South America and knew I would visit Ushuaia again, a city located in the southern part of Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego. Before my trip, I connected with Victor Vargas, the curator of the End of the World Museum (Museo Fin del Mundo), who is himself a descendant of the Yaghan and the author of the book “My Yaghan Blood.” An agreement was made with the director, Natalia Tosello, to present my book at their museum during my stay in Ushuaia. The idea piqued the interest of local journalists, as they found it unusual that someone living 13,500 km away knew about them and their history. That’s how I became the southernmost presented Croatian author in the world.
Presentation of the book “José Miličić, the Last Chief of the Yaghan Tribe” by Branka Bezić Filipović at the End of the World Museum in Ushuaia in December 2023.
Branka Bezić Filipović and Victor Vargas.
Despite the fact that I am writing my 20th book, this one about José Miličić holds special meaning for me because I quickly realized that I would have very little data to work with. Knowing the area, it wasn’t difficult for me to imagine how our people must have felt when they came from the Adriatic to the desolation at the very end of the world, where they faced a harsh climate, unfamiliar landscapes, and a people they had never seen before, whose language they didn’t understand and whose customs they didn’t know.
The southern part of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago is known as the lands of the Beagle Channel or the Cape Horn Archipelago. Due to its isolation from the rest of the continent, this area remained outside European colonial ambitions for a long time. It was of interest only to occasional explorers, famous sailors, or adventurers who were brave enough to risk coming to these latitudes, primarily to discover new maritime routes. The Cape Horn Archipelago was taken seriously only when Sir Francis Drake accidentally sailed there in the late 16th century. They discovered the existence of the indigenous people who lived there, but they didn’t interest Drake because there was nothing to plunder from them. Two hundred years later, when Chile and Argentina gained independence from Spanish rule, the British crown offered the cartographic survey of the territory to Admirals Phillip Parker King and Robert Fitz Roy. The latter became a key figure in the history of the world’s southernmost inhabited region. The vast expanses of untouched wilderness conceal an even harsher, tragic story of the extermination of the indigenous people. One of them was the last chief of the Yagán tribe, who bore the surname Miličić from the island of Hvar.
Landscape of the Beagle Channel (Bahía Lapataia)
Map of the Beagle Channel and southern islands where the Yagán people lived
Who were the Yagán people? They were the oldest of the four groups of Indigenous peoples living in the southern part of the South American continent and the southernmost people in the world. Each group spoke its own language, they did not encroach on each other’s territory, and conflicts were rare. Their weapons were used solely for hunting. Murder was not tolerated and was strongly condemned by the entire community.
The Yagán did not wear clothes; instead, they smeared themselves with animal fat from sea creatures and, along with a small amount of otter fur, protected themselves from the cold. They ate a lot of raw fish fat and over time developed a metabolism that allowed them to retain more body heat than the average person. When Admiral Robert Fitz Roy first saw them, he considered them impolite, and as a great-grandson of English King Charles II, he didn’t find their smell very pleasant either. He sailed in the ship Beagle, after which he named the channel in the southern part of Tierra del Fuego. Without a doubt, the Yagán people had adapted to the land on which they lived over thousands of years. They knew how to find food, how to use plants for healing, and, most importantly, they knew the local geography and topography, and could predict when it was safe to sail in their canoes and when it wasn’t. It is important to note that the area around Cape Horn and the Wollaston Archipelago is the largest ship graveyard in the world, where around 10,000 sailors have lost their lives from the time of Drake’s discovery to the present. Or as Rosa Miličić described it: “How many ships were lost and sunk around the Wollaston Archipelago? So many that we never lacked for planks.”
Yagan girls, Beagle channel 1907
However, the Europeans came up with the idea of “civilizing” the Indigenous people, so during his first visit, Fitz Roy took four young Yagán individuals to England, intending to return them after three years. The Yagán people did not understand this, and one of the young men was “traded” by Fitz Roy for a colorful button, and he gave him the name Jemmy Button. Soon after, Jemmy’s parents realized that their son had been taken away, and his father died of grief, never knowing that he would return. From the moment the white man bought the boy for a button, the world of the Yagán people changed forever. Jemmy returned after three years with a weak grasp of the English language and some manners that he didn’t need at home. He also did not fulfill the expectations that he would continue to civilize his people. That task fell to the missionaries. Fitz Roy himself brought a missionary on that journey but realized there was no point in leaving him there. On that voyage, a young scientist named Charles Darwin was also aboard. The Beagle continued its journey into the Pacific, where Darwin, in the Galápagos, came to conclusions that led to the formulation of his theory of Origin of Species. Fitz Roy commented: “I find nothing noble in the thought that I could be a descendant of even the oldest monkey.”
The Chilean state encouraged the settlement of the far south to reinforce sovereignty over the southernmost islands. It offered concessions and good conditions to farmers but also allowed missionaries to work with the Indigenous people, effectively delivering the final blow to their genocide.
The Yagán lived in the polar circle region, where winters are long, harsh, and dark, the maximum sea temperature rarely exceeds 9 degrees, summer days last until midnight, and nearly every day there is a mix of sun and rain, with the only constant being the wind throughout the year. This is no surprise, as we are talking about an area farther south than the African Cape of Good Hope and Australia’s Tasmania, where two oceans meet, around the 56th parallel. Old sailors used to say: “Below 40 degrees latitude, there is no law, and below 50 degrees, there is no God.”
It was to this place that Ante Miličić from Brusje on the island of Hvar set out on August 20, 1891.
How did José Miličić become the last chief of the Yagán tribe? At the end of the 19th century, gold was discovered in Tierra del Fuego and on the islands south of the Beagle Channel. For example, between 1891 and 1893, a total of 1,500 kg of gold was found on three islands: Picton, Nueva, Lennox, and Navarino. This meant that many miners gathered the initial capital to buy farms, which required large pieces of land. In this region, sheep stay outdoors all year, produce a lot of wool, but each sheep needs 1 hectare of land to survive the year. In winter, sheep dig for grass under the snow and even sleep in the snow. At that time, a good farm had between 500 and 1,000 sheep, while today, a farm with 3,000 sheep is barely considered average.
Lennox Island Beach
Attracted by the story of gold, Ante Miličić set sail for Buenos Aires on the ship “Calabria” with a group of prospectors led by the Dubrovnik native Ivan Milošević Muratti. Besides Miličić, there were ten others, mostly from Dubrovnik and its surroundings, as well as from Boka Kotorska. They were: Špiro Denda and Vlaho Martinović from the Dubrovnik coast, Vlaho Banić from Orašac, Ivan Sturica from Cavtat, Ivan Sale from Dubrovnik, Bogdan Đuranović from Đurići, Elias Zaputović from Budva, and Kotorans Fortunato Brguljan, Elias Mišerić, and Ivan Marović.
From Buenos Aires, they were transferred south by the Korčulan Miho Kačić on his ship “San Pedro”. The group headed to Lennox Island and was among the 500 Dalmatian people who, over two months, from December 1891 to February 1892, found 115 kg of gold. Ante Miličić received a concession to raise sheep on Nueva Island.
At that time, the Native Alfredo Yagan had lost his wife and was left with a four-year-old son whom he could not care for alone. He met Miličić and asked him to take care of the boy, which he did, giving him his surname. Thus, the little Lanamutekensh became Jose Miličić. When the boy grew up, Ante sent him to Punta Arenas where he finished school run by the Salesians. Jose then returned to his stepfather on Nueva Island where they raised sheep. In a naval report, their estate, with 600 sheep, was described as very good for living. They lived there in 1899 in one of the three houses on the island, which was about the size of two Šoltes. Today, only a Chilean Navy station remains there.
Jose Miličić, the Last Chief of the Yagan Tribe (1886 – 1961)
Jose eventually married and returned to his tribe. Like his father, he lost his wife and, as a widower, became interested in Rosa, the one from Patricia Štambuk Mayorga’s book at the beginning of this text. Rosa was 17 years younger and was named after the Anglican mission where she was born. She also had her indigenous name, Lakutaia le kipa, or Woman from the Cormorant Cove. Since Rosa was hesitant, her mother and older women advised her that it was better for the man to be older because he would no longer engage in foolishness and would take care of his wife and canoe.
Rosa Yagan Miličić (1903 – 1983)
And so, Rosa and Jose were married on March 21, 1943. Since Jose was the only educated one, the tribe chose him as their chief. His duty was to care for the peace and conduct within the tribe. Cristina Calderon said: He was good to his people, he helped as much as he could, and he understood a little about medicine.
Jose died in 1961, and Rosa outlived him by 22 years. On her tombstone, it says: Rosa Yagan Yagan de Milicic, for those who remain – Watauineiwa (God) took me to Himself.
The cemetery in Puerto Williams, where Rosa Miličić is buried, overlooks the Beagle Channel and Tierra del Fuego.
And we, who remain, have much to learn from that ancient people, and better understand the situations in which our coastal people found themselves in the farthest south of the globe. This fills me with deep admiration and respect, and I wish to preserve the memory of those brave and strong people who were able to adapt to everything they faced.
The area of constant wind, where trees often grow crooked.
Text and photos: Branka Bezić Filipović