Kawesqar

The Kawesqar group is made up of the canoe nomads of the Patagonian channels. The Kawésqar, called Alacaluf by European sailors, paddled the fjords between the Gulf of Penas and the Strait of Magellan, fishing, hunting seals and gathering shellfish, and never farmed. Their northern neighbors, the Guaiteco or Chono, lived among the archipelagos off southern Chile, harpooning sea lions from wooden dalca boats.

García Jofre de Loaisa's expedition sighted Kawésqar campfires in 1526. Chiloé raiders hunted the Guaiteco for slaves from the late sixteenth century, and in the 1740s Spain emptied their islands and moved them to Chiloé; families that fled south were absorbed by the Kawésqar. British and American sealers brought disease from the late eighteenth century.