The First inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego
They probably arrived 10.000 years ago when the water level of Magellan's Strait still linked the island to the continent. When the Europeans arrived there were four ethnic groups, the onas (or selk'nam) that occupied the north and centre of the island, the haush (they occupied the east), the alakaluf (towards the west) and the yámana (or yaghan) in the southern coasts of the Beagle Channel.

Onas
They were hunters of guanacos and they lived inside the island. They rarely went into the sea and they used bone harpoons to hunt marine species. They built their own canoes of lenga wood.

The Yánamas
They had a language that Wedell believed was Hebrew, on the other hand Darwin compared it with gargling and he even stated that it did not deserve the name of articulate language. However it has a very rich vocabulary (of more than 30.000 words) that has been preserved thanks to Reverend Briggs's dictionary.