'Anne Chapman' (born
1922) is a
Franco-
American ethnologist. She has studied the
Mesoamerican civilizations and especially the
Tolupan (
Jicaque) people of Honduras. She has also visited
Magallanes and
Tierra del Fuego many times, since 1965, to study the
Fuegian peoples in depth, especially the
Selk’nam and
Yahgan.
Concerning the Fuegian, she first became interested in the matter through
Annette Laming-Emperaire and
Joseph Emperaire.
Her research was essential to understand the cultures of these peoples
and she met the last members of the Selk’nam people: Lola Kiepja and
Angela Loij.
She has published many papers in important anthropologic revues, but,
without a doubt her most important work concerning the Fuegian is the
book ''Drama and Power in a Hunting Society: The Selk’nam of Tierra del
Fuego'' (1981). She has also published ''La Isla de los Estados en la
prehistoria: Primeros datos arqueológicos'' (1987,
Buenos Aires),
''El Fin de Un Mundo: Los Selk'nam de Tierra del Fuego' (1990, Buenos
Aires), and three chapters listed in ''Cap Horn 1882-1883: Rencontre
avec les Indiens Yahgan'' (1995,
Paris), which contains many photographs taken by members of the French expedition to
Cape Horn 1882-83 that are among the best of the Yahgans, ten of the
Alakaluf in 1881 of the eleven who were kidnapped and taken to Paris and other
European
cities, and six of the last Yahgans she took in 1964 and 1987. Later,
she has also published ''Hain: Selknam Initiation Ceremony'' and ''End
of a World: The Selknam of Tierra del Fuego'', both books includding a
CD of Lola Kiepja’s Hain chants (2003, Santiago de Chile). In 2004 she has published ''El fenómeno de la canoa yagán'' (
Universidad Marítima de Chile,
Viña del Mar)
and in 2006 both ''Darwin in Tierra del Fuego'' (Buenos Aires) and
''Lom: amor y venganza, mitos de los yámana'' (Santiago de Chile). Her
present book in press is ''Cape Horn: Encounters with the Native People
Before and After Darwin's Voyage'', a narrative of the dramas played
out from 1578 to 2000 in the Cape Horn area of
Chile by the native people, the navigators, the missionaries and other Europeans.
Chapman has also made following films about the lives of the last
members of the Selk’nam and Yahgan tribes: ''The Onas: Life and Death
in Tierra del Fuego'' (1977, in collaboration with Ana Montes de
González) and ''Homage to the Yahgans: The Last Indians of Tierra del
Fuego and Cape Horn'' (1990), which became International Film and TV
Festival of New York Finalist.
Awards
★ Doctor Honoris Causa.
University of Magallanes,
Punta Arenas, Chile (2003).
★ Orden
José Cecilio del Valle en grado de Caballero. Foreign Relations Ministry,
Tegucigalpa,
Honduras as well as other honors by the Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia and the
University of Honduras mainly for her work with the
Tolupan of
Montaña de la Flor and the
Lencas of Intibuca (2005).
★ Orden al Mérito Docente y Cultural
Gabriela Mistral en el grado de Comendador. Given by the Chilean Ministry of Education (2005).
External links
★
Anne Chapman page