Rates of change in clothing and ornaments of the Yagan society of Tierra del Fuego (19th and 20th centuries)

In this work we will examine the different adoption rhythms of Western material culture by the Yagan society of Tierra de Fuego from the end of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century. In order to do this, we will focus the analysis on a corpus of 428 ethnographic photographs of this indigenous people, obtained between 1881 and 1987 in Tierra del Fuego, in order to analyze in a diachronic way the unequal adoption of Western material culture, specifically clothing and ornaments. In this way, we hope to discuss the different processes regarding this material culture since the contact with Europeans: full adoption, partial adoption (cycling), recycling, and resilience. Thus, we find that the Yagans were active agents of their own cultural change, which had different rhythms linked to negociation and resilience processes, which allowed the physical and cultural survival of this First Nation.