Case file · Sacred site
The last Selk'nam Hain
In 1923 the priest and ethnographer Martin Gusinde attended and photographed a Hain, the Selk'nam men's initiation ceremony of Tierra del Fuego, in which masked, painted men impersonated spirits such as Shoort and Xalpen.
1923 CE · -54.55, -67.90 · status: official
The account
His photographs of the painted spirits became some of the most famous images of Indigenous South America. The ceremony was held as the Selk'nam people were being destroyed by settler violence and disease; by the 1920s only a few hundred survived. Selk'nam descendants are today reclaiming their identity.
The sceptical view
A documented ceremony, although Gusinde's interpretations reflected his own framework.