Where the Earth Ends by John Harrison

Author:John Harrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: epub, ebook, QuarkXPress
ISBN: 111-1-11-111111-1
Publisher: Parthian Books
Published: 2013-10-16T00:00:00+00:00

Flowers in a Jam Jar

The morning rain cut hor­i­zon­tally across Puerto Williams’s empty streets, and gave way only to hail. Looking up above the town to Cerro Bandera, I saw heavy snow begin­ning below one thou­sand feet. Climbing it today would have been too dan­ger­ous to do alone. I walked to the ceme­tery where a wooden fence kept out a white horse. Knee-high grass soaked my jeans. Here was the grave. Rain bent the petals of small flowers in a glass jar.

‘Rosa Yahgan de Milicic, born Tekenika 2 March 1903, died Puerto Williams 4 April 1983.’ The same epitaph is written in Yahgan and Spanish.

Annu Halayala san skar

Wathuineiwa annu katuti hiske.

Ya los he dejado

dios me llevó con el.

It means:

I have already left them

God took me with him.

Below it, in English: ‘Probably the last full-blooded Yámana.’ This was added when tour­ists started coming.

Born Tekenika. Even the name spelled out what was unbridge­able between the old and the new. Captain Fitzroy would sail with natives along the shores and ask what the various places were called. They had no common lan­guage. Early charts showed a land called Yaapooh. Fitzroy had pointed to a distant shore and asked what it was. The native, looking care­fully with his hunter’s eyes, had replied iapooh – otter. It wasn’t always so easy to see what the strang­ers wanted. In a bay of Hoste Island the guide simply said Teke uneka, I don’t under­stand. Down went the name, Tekenika. It’s still there, I Don’t Understand Bay.

When Thomas Bridges moved to Harberton the South American Missionary Society began plan­ning a totally new mission, in even more inhos­pit­able country. Ships failing to make the Horn often ran north into the bay between the Cape Horn and the Wollaston Isles to the south, and the large islands of Navarino and Hoste to the north. Here they could perish for want or, it was believed, be mur­dered by Yámana. The Missionary Society would go and live among the most south­erly fam­i­lies on earth, and bring them to Christ.

Leonard and Nellie Burleigh had worked eleven years for the Society, in the Falkland Islands, where they had learned Yahgan. They had a young daugh­ter, Kate. Leonard was a car­pen­ter. He could, the Mission rea­soned, build a home for his family, a mission, and other nec­es­sary build­ings. On 14 October 1888 Captain Willis sailed the Allen Gardiner to Grevy Island. Reconnaissance had not extended to ensur­ing that the boat could approach the shore within two miles of the chosen base, or that the land had wood and fresh water within a mile and a half of it. The chosen spot was, they now noticed, fully open to winds arriving directly from Antarctica.

Next day they approached Bayly Island, where they had no per­mis­sion to stay. But it was a better site. Burleigh took the risk and went ashore. Captain Willis and the crew stayed a while, to help fell a clear­ing for a house, and drop stones to start a jetty. They unloaded a wooden-framed cabin and assem­bled it.

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