Tupac Inca Yupanqui's voyage to the Polynesian Islands

This series of posts has been exploring the possible trans-Pacific contacts between Polynesia, Melanesia, Australia, and South America. Until now we have looked at a West to East navigation of Polynesian or Melanesian people, in this post we will learn about the East to West route, and in particular, an expedition sent into the Pacific Ocean by the Inca ruler Tupac Yupanqui around 1470 AD.

There are several sources about this Inca voyage, and we will mention them below, but first, let's learn more about this "Inca" or "Inga" ("Ynga") as the Spaniards of the 16th century called him.

Tupac Inca Yupanqui

The Inca (King, or Emperor of the Inca Empire) Tupac Inca Yupanqui (c.1441-1493) - also Topa Inga Yupanqui and Tupa Ynga Yupanqui, was the tenth Inca to rule the empire, son of Pachacúc (also known as Pachacuti Ynga Yupanqui, or Yngayupanqui - see Murúa Chap. XVII). Although he wasn't the firstborn, his military abilities led his father to name him his successor. He ascended to the throne in 1471 and was succeeded by his son Huayna Capac.

During his reign he expanded the empire south into what is now Bolivia, northwestern Argentina and northern & Central Chile, subduing the Mapuche and setting the southern border of his empire along the Maule River in Chile (see my custom Google map). He also set out to explore the Pacific Ocean.

Tupac Inca Yupanqui. Guaman Poma (1615)

Father Acosta - 1590

José de Acosta in his Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590) was the first to suggest a trans-Pacific contact and its influence in America and its peopling:

"There is a great account in Peru of giants who came to those parts, whose bones of immense size are found today near Manta and Puerto Viejo... They say that those giants came by sea, waged war against the inhabitants of the land, and built magnificent structures... Those men... were consumed by fire that came from the sky. The Indians of Ica and Arica also tell that they used to sail to islands far to the west, and they sailed in inflated sea lion hides. So there is no lack of evidence that the South Sea was navigated before the Spanish came. Thus, we might think that the new world was inhabited by men whom the harshness of time and the force of the North Winds drove there."

See the location of Ica and Arica in my custom map, these inflated boats are far too primitive to have crossed the ocean to Polynesia, they were used by the Chango-Chinchorro people. Manta and Puerto Viejo, in Ecuador (see my map) are sites mentioned in other chronicles as places visited by traders who came from the west, navigating the Pacific Ocean. Here, Acosta depicts them as bellicose giants.

Sarmiento de Gamboa and the Voyage across the Pacific

The first source is a History of the Incas written by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (c. 1530-1592). Sarmiento de Gamboa was a Spanish explorer, navigator, historian, and cosmographer, who arrived in Mexico (Nueva España) in 1555. Two years later (1557) he moved to Peru where he had a close encounter with the Inquisition. Later he joined the expedition of Alvaro de Mendaña that in 1567 set out to explore the South Pacific Ocean in an attempt to find the Terra Australis Incognita. They discovered the Solomon Islands in 1568. The viceroy of Peru commissioned him to write a history of the Incas in 1572 (which we quote further down). In 1578, he tried to capture English privateer, Francis Drake, and ended up exploring the coast of Chile and Southwestern Patagonia all the way to the Strait of Magellan (1579). He continued onwards, to Spain, persuaded the King, Philip II to settle and fortify the Strait and returned to Patagonia in 1581, with men, women, tools, and limited supplies. He established two towns on the Strait, but after he left them, the supply ships never arrived, and the settlers died of hunger and exposure. When Thomas Cavendish sailed by them in 1587, he rescued a sole survivor and renamed the place "Port Famine" (close to what is now Punta Arenas in Chile). During his return to Europe (1584) he was captured by the British, and then by the French. Released in 1588, he returned to Spain where he was named Admiral of the Indies Fleet. He died at sea and was buried in Lisbon, Portugal.

I have quoted his journal on the navigation of Patagonia in my book and in this blog as it is very detailed and includes references about the natives and the fauna. Below I quote Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, Historia de los Incas (p.68).

"And while Tupac Inca Yupanqui was conquering the coast of Manta and the islands of Puna and Tumbes, some merchants arrived there who had come by sea from the west on rafts [balsas
sailing by sail. They told him about the land from which they came, which were islands called Avachumpi and Niñachumpi, where there were many people and much gold. And since Tupac Inca was of high spirits and high ideals, and was not content with what he had conquered on land, he resolved to try his luck at sea. But he did not readily trust the seafaring merchants, for he said that the Capac¹ should not trust so easily at first sight, because those were people who talk a lot. And to gather more information, and since it was not usual to be able to inquire about this just anywhere, he summoned a man he had brought with him on his conquests, named Antarqui, whom all these people affirmed was a great necromancer, so much so that he could fly through the air. Tupac Inca asked him if what the seafaring merchants said about the islands was true. Antarqui replied, after careful consideration, that what they said was true, and that he would go there first. And so it is said that he went by his own means, and explored the path and saw the islands, their people, and their riches, and upon returning, he gave Tupac Inca confirmation.
With this certainty, he resolved to go there. And for this purpose, he built a great many rafts, on which he embarked more than twenty thousand chosen soldiers. And he took with him as captains Huaman Achachi, Cunti Yupanqui, Quihual Tupac (these were Hanan-cuzcos) and Yancan Mayta, Quisu Mayta, Cachimapaca Macus Yupanqui, Llimpita Usca Mayta (Hurin-cuzcos); and he took his brother Tuca Yupanqui as general of the entire fleet, and left Apu Yupanqui with those who remained on land.
Tupac Inca sailed and discovered the islands of Avachumpi and Niñachumpi, and returned from there, bringing back black people, much gold, and a brass chair, and a horse hide and jawbone. These trophies were kept in the fortress of Cuzco until the time of the Spaniards. This horse hide and jawbone were kept by a principal Inca, who is still alive and gave this account. When the others corroborated it, he was present and is called Urco Huaranca. I emphasize this because those who know something about the Indies will find it a strange and difficult-to-believe case. Tupac Inca Yupanqui took more than nine months on this journey, others say a year, and because he took so long, everyone thought he was dead, but to disguise and pretend that they had news of Tupac Inca, Apu Yupanqui, his captain of the people of the land, made celebrations; although later they were interpreted in reverse, saying that those celebrations were of pleasure, because Tupac Inca Yupanqui did not appear; and it cost him his life.
These are the islands that I, in the year sixty-seven, on the thirtieth of November, discovered in the South Sea, two hundred and some leagues west of Lima, on my way to the great discovery of which I reported to the governor and licentiate Castro. And Alvaro de Mendaña, general of the navy, refused to take them.
After Tupac Inca disembarked from the discovery of the islands, he went to Tumipampa to visit his wife and son and prepared to go to Cuzco to see his father, who he was told was ill... "

1. Capac originally meant "rich", but later it was used to denote the lord, prince, high, the rich monarch of the Inca people.

Analysis and comments

Manta, and the Islands of Puna and Tumbes, and Cusco can be seen in our custom Google Map, in northern Peru and western Ecuador.

Sarmiento de Gamboa heard the account firsthand, from a person named Urco Huaranca who appears to havet taken part of the expedition. The trophies had been stored in the Inca Temple in their capital city, Cusco, and had also been seen by the witnesses. However, the Spaniards, with Christian zeal, razed the temple, looted the precious metals and burnt the relics.

This voyage took place before the death of Pachacutec (1471), possibly in 1468-70 so Urco Huaranca must have been extremely old to have sailed with Tupac Inca Yupanqui. It is likely that Sarmiento de Gamboa interviewed Urco Huaranca in 1557, and that Huaranca was young, probably a shield bearer when he sailed, meaning that he was born around 1458 so he'd have been 99 years old in 1557.

I also wonder if this story, and the chance to find gold and silver inspired the South Seas voyage conducted by de Mendaña in which Sarmiento de Gamboa took part, as a captain. They must have imagined that the islands were closer to Peru than they really were.

The Version of Miguel Cabello de Valboa

There is a second version of the oceanic voyage by Miguel Cabello de Valboa (or Balboa) see p. 322, Chapter XVII in Miscelánea Antártica, written between 1576 and 1586, and published in the 20th century. de Valboa (1535-1608) was a Spanish clergyman and writer, great nephew of Vasc Nuñez de Balboa, the man who discovered the Pacific Ocean. His sources differed frmo those used by Sarmiento de Gamboa, yet both stories are very similar. Below is an image with the pertinent text, and further down, its translation into English.

The text shown above, can be seen below, translated into English:

"...and he settled in Manta, and in Charapoto, and in Piquaza… it was where King Topa Inca first saw the Sea, which, upon discovering it from a high place, he worshipped in a very profound way, and called it Mammacocha, which means mother of the lagoons, and he had prepared a great number of the boats that the natives used (which are certain remarkably light poles) and by tying them tightly together, and making on top a certain platform of reeds, woven, it is a very safe and comfortable boat: These we have called rafts [balsas], for having gathered a sufficient number for the people he intended to take with him, and having taken from the natives of those coasts the most experienced pilots he could find, he set sail with the same vigor and spirit as if he had experienced its fortunes and trades since birth. On this voyage he traveled farther than one might easily believe; those who recount the deeds of this valiant Inca affirm with certainty that he remained at sea for a period of a year, and they say that he discovered certain islands which they called Hagua Chumbi and Nina Chubi; whether these islands are in the South Sea (on whose coast the Inca embarked) I will not dare to state definitively, nor what land might be presumed to have been found on this voyage. The accounts that the ancients give us of this voyage are that he brought back from there black Indian captives, and much gold and silver, and also a brass chair, and hides of animals such as horses, and from where such things can be brought, it is completely unknown in this Peru and in the sea that extends from it..."

The Inca grandchildren's account

A third reference is the testimony of Tupac's grandchildren in written in 1569 and published by Rowe in 1985 (La Probanza de los Incas nietos de conquistadores), who as proof of their relationship with the Inca mention his conquests and confirm he discovered "aba chumbi, nina chumbi, province that is towards the sea." Since this predates the other chronicles, it is surely based on historic facts, and different sources too!

Murúa's Account

The fourth source was written by friar Martín de Murúa (1525-c.1617) in his Historia General del Peru that he concluded in 1612, (see Chap. XXI) where he mentions a successful military campaign undertaken by Tupa Inga. He was sent by his father (Murúa names him as Inca Yupanqui) while he was still a prince. This is his account:

" Inca Yupanqui ordered his son and heir, who was to succeed him as ruler, named Tupa Inca Yupanqui, to go to war with a very large army, and so he dispatched him...
Tupa Inca Yupanqui and his brothers left Cuzco with a large army from different nations, and began their conquest in the province of the Quechua... and in the province of the Angares... in the province of Jauja... the province of Huailas... and in the Chachapoyas... and then the province of the Cañares... Continuing his conquest, Tupa Inca Yupanqui arrived at the very powerful province of Quito, where there were great skirmishes and battles with its people, but in the end he defeated and subdued them... From there he went down to the Huancas Vilcas, where he built the fortress of Huachalla, and from there he began the conquest of the Huancas Vilcas, and although difficult, through the multitude of his people and the courage and industry of his captains he subdued them, and their principal leaders, Huacapi Huamo and Manta Yucara and Quisiri to Huachumpi and Nina Chumpi"

The last words of this quote mention the "Polynesian" islands recorded by Sarmiento de Gamboa, Cabello de Valboa, and the Inca grandchildren, with a different spelling, but same sounds: "Huachumpi and NinaChumpi" as the last territories to be subdued after the defeat of the local chiefs in Huancavila. But it says nothing about an oceanic voyage.

Joan de Santa Cruz

The final reference is a historic chronicle by Joan de Santa Cruz, whose Inca name was Pachacutec Yamqui Salcamaygua, written in 1613. He was a christianized native, from a noble Inca family; his paternal family name was originally Condorcanqui. He wrote a history of Peru, and regarding our Inca voyager, there is an interesting text published in Tres Relaciones Peruanas (1879) p. 274.

Joan de Santa Cruz, in a similar way to Sarmiento de Gamboa and de Valboa, he writes about the 8th Inca, "Pachacutiyngayupangui" and mentions his military expedition, naming places jist like Murúa did but in this case the Inca is not Tupac, but his father, who "finally, at the Ancoallos enters the mountains deep inside, taking their idol, and from there the said Pachacutiyngayupangui returns with a great sum and abundant gold and silver and umiña [emeralds]. And coming thus, he arrives at an island of the Yungas where there were mothers of pearls, called churoy-mamam; and he finds much more umiña. And from there he went to the town of the province of Chimo, where he found Chimocapac and Quirutome, curaca of that province of the Yungas."

The "Yungas" was a word used by the Incas to name lowlanders, people who lived on the coast, or in the hollows of valleys (Source), the highlanders were "Serranos". The yungas in this case is the land between Trujillo (Chimu) and Tumbes, along the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The same Inca conducted another campaign towards the South (Arequipa), "and he entered Cuzco and celebrated, and then they say that he brought into Cuzco a great sum of silver and gold and a whale."

So, in this narrative, we have the Inca, his expedition, but the inca isn't Tupac Yupanqui, instead, it is his father Pachacutui. Who reaches the Yungas with gold, silver and mother pearl, and on a second campaign has a triumph when he returns to Cusco with gold, silver, and the bones or remains of a whale (the horse in the chronicles of Gamboa and Valboa!).

The Polynesian Merchants and Giants

The merchants mentioned in Sarmiento's history are also described in an ancient myth of the Yungas people. Pedro Gutiérrez de Santa Clara (c.1522-1603), was born in Mexico, a creole with a Native American mother; he reached Peru in 1543 and wrote about the Civil War raging there between Pizarro and his associate Almagro over the spoils of the Inca empire. Finally settled in 1554 when the Spanish Crown created the viceroyalty of Peru. In his work Historia de las Guerras Civiles del Perú (Vol. III, Chap. LXI, p. 527) he describes balsa rafts, and the myth of their origin:

"The Indians of the towns of Paita and Puerto Viejo de Tumbes, and of the island of Apuna Puná, and those of the entire coast, have used, since time immemorial and still use today, rafts made of light, dry wood and reeds with triangulated lateen sails and a rudder at the stern. When they want to fish, they board them and go out to sea more than four leagues with the sails set. When the land breeze comes, they catch a fish, pluck out its eyes, and eat it without any disgust...
And after midday, when the tide came in, they returned to land with their sails set and their rafts laden with many kinds of fish. They say further that this way of sailing was learned from their ancestors, and that they, in turn, learned it from a man who had come by sea and arrived there on a raft with sails like the ones they use now. And that this man was called Viracocha, which means sea foam or sea butter, and that the sea begot him and that he had neither father nor mother, and since later the Spaniards arrived in these lands in ships, they are called Viracocha to this day. And that this same man spent a long time among their ancestors, teaching them good doctrine and law, and that afterwards they did not know where he had gone, and that he was a good man, and that he spoke like them; it is understood by the Spaniards that he must have been some disciple of the disciples of the Lord, who passed through here preaching to them."

Viracocha, is similar to the man-god Quetzalcoatl of the natives living in Central America and Amalivaca, of the Orinoco indians. He came from the sea, civilized the natives, and then vanished returning to the sea.

Amerindian Balsa rafts were formidable vessels, the story above says they navigated over 4 leagues into the into the Pacific (22 km or 14 mi.). Below is an engraving (See it online), from 1742, showing a balsa in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

de Santa Clara (see p. 566) also mentions the story of the "giants" who arrived in boats from the West, but gives more details than father Acosta gave:

"The very ancient and old Indians who lived in Puerto Viejo, which are those of the province of Manta, said that in ancient times, when Topa Inca Yupanqui reigned, that while that land was at peace, it was all thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a great number of giant Indians, who were of unusual height and size. And that these came in very large boats or rafts, made of reeds and dry wood, which bore triangulated lateen sails, coming from the direction where the sun sets and from the Moluccas Islands, or the Strait of Magellan, and that these, entering the land, began to tyrannize it, conquering some lands and killing many Indians, and driving others out of their villages. The natives of Puerto Viejo, when they saw these aliens arrive with such great fury and pride, and how they treated them so badly, and how they could not defend themselves against them, were filled with great fear, for which reason they immediately sent word by post to Topa Inca Yupanqui, who at that time was in the city of Cuzco..."

The Inca sent his warlords to tell the giants to submit or they would all be killed, they spoke by signs, and the giants surrendered and told their story:

"These giants told the natives of this land how they had come from some very large islands and lands in the southern sea towards the west, and that they had been cast out of them by a great Indian lord who lived there, who was as large and of stature as they were. And furthermore, that they had sailed the sea for many days by oar and sail, and that a certain squall or storm had cast them into those parts, without knowing where they were going but that fortune would take them wherever it wished, and that they were better off being subjected in foreign lands than free in their own, with continuous wars as they had had there, and so they said other things. The weapons with which these people fought were very large stones, which they threw with their hands, and each stone killed an Indian if it hit him, and with knotted sticks and clubs that they made after they arrived on land, because they did not bring any weapons, because their enemies took them from them by defeat... These gave great news of the many islands they had seen in this South Sea..."

Then they were given land to settle at punta de Tangarata, later named Santa Elena by the Spaniards, it lacked water so the idea was that they die of thirst or leave, but they found water and stayed there. Lacking women, they released their natural instincts by becoming sodomites and God punished them with a ball of fire. Some managed to survive.

Polynesian Rafts

Did the Polynesians have rafts similar to those used by the South American natives? Yes, they did. We have mentioned their sewn-plank canoes and outriggers, but they also used rafts. Frederick William Christian mentions them (Source, see p.200): "The Pahi or raft-boat, which somewhat resembled the Balsa of ancient Peru, and the catamarans of the Chatham Islands, also called Pahi by the natives, the construction of which allows the water to wash through the body of the vessel..." Below is an image of a raft seen in the Mangareva Islands (See Captain F.W. Beechey's voyages in the mid 1820s, and his book, which includes this image); see Mangareva in my custom map. Compared to the South American raft it looks rather primitive, but it shows that large rafts were built in Eastern Polynesia.

F. W. Christian (1932) also noted that these rafts may have had a Peruvian influence: "the well-attested fact of the use by the Mangarevans of a large raft-canoe of non-Polynesian model, is just as decisive evidence in its way, of an alien culture - contact as that of the presence of the outrigger - canoe in Chiloe Island." Evidently Christian favored a two-way trans-Pacific interaction between Polynesia and South America.

Trade between South America and Eastern Polynesia would account for cultural exchange such as the Mapuche chickens, the use of ceremonial adzes, and the dispersal of sweet potato from South America to Polynesia and Melanesia (see this paper about the sweet potato).

The Inca people usd knots tied on strings as a mnemonic technique, they were called Quipu, an identical method was used in Polynesia, and it was found in Hawaii (source) and also in the Marquesas as a memory aid where it was known as too mata (source p.117).

Mythical Tupa in Mangareva and Rafts

Several sources mention a paper by F. W. Christian, published in 1924 (Early Maori Migrations as Evidenced by Physical Geography and Language. Report of the 16th Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. Wellington, NZ. p.525) which says that a Mangarevan natives' myth mentions "a chief called Tupa, a red man,... came from the east with a fleet of canoes of non-Polynesian model, more like rafts." Another local account recorded by Peter H. Buck, Peter, 1938 (Ethnology of Mangareva. Bulletin of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum Vol. 157. Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. p.22), is the following: "An important visitor to Mangareva was Tupa... [he] had a brother, Noe, by a different mother. The two brothers landed at an island named Te Rohau. Tupa killed Noe during a quarrel over who should have Mangareva... the body of Noe was placed on a raft (take take)... Tupa... came to Temoe and built a marae [marae = "temple", "altar"], but finding no food, he sailed on... Tupa sailed to Mangareva through the southeast passage subsequently named Te Ava-nui-o-Tupa (Great Channel of Tupa)... Tupa had many gods and it was he who tahught the people about them. Before he returned to Hiva [Hiva = "distant lands"], he told the Mangarevans about a vast land named Havaiki and Takere-no-te-henua which contained a large population ruled by powerful kings."

This visit took place during the 14th Century (this wold place him in Mangareva 100 years earlier than Tupac Inca's voyage). Interestingly, on page 288, Buck mentions that only the Mangarevans did the rafts take the place of canoes, and gives a detailed desceription of their features (p. 281).

The Opinion of Experts

I read Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002) when I was a child, and its black and white pictures of the balsa wood raft crossing the Pacific were fascinating! Heyerdahl was the first to test the feasibility of his theory, in 1947, by crossing the Pacific ocean from Peru to the Raroia (Tuamotu) using the wind and oceanic currents. He wrote several books and in one of them, Seafaring in Early Peru (1996), written book in both English and Spanish, he looked into rafts, and also mentioned the Tupa myth in Polynesia, and suggested that Mangareva in the Marquesas was the spot viisited by Tupac Inca.

José Antonio Salas García in his thorough and excellent work Travesías Ultramarinas de Tupac Yupanqui (Tupac Yupanqui's Overseas Voyage), Ernst & Young, 2024, suggests that the Inca Tupac used the Polynesian merchants as pilots, and was driven by the oceanic current across the Pacific, and used the counter-current to return. That the balsa wood had been impregnated (palm oil, wax) using a technique known to the Ecuadorian natives, to keep them from becoming waterlogged. That he reached the Marquesas Islands (Mangareva), on their return trip the went by Rapa Nui. The gold and silver were taken by his Generals during military campaigns against the Chimu, the mother pearl could be Polynesian or Ecuadorian, and the hide and bones were either of a whale or a seal. Finally, the "black" people were captives, who were called "yana" in Quechua language, which means "servant" or "slave", and later after the Spanish conquest, it was applied to African slaves, hence its other meaning, "black".

Clements R. Markham (Historia del Peru, 1895, p.34) mentions the navigation and suggests that the islands Tupac visited were the Galapagos: "Yupanqui advanced from Quito to Manta, following the coast north of Guayaquil, and according to Bilbao [sic], he gathered a large number of rafts with which he undertook new conquests. He reached the islands of Nina Chumpi and Hahua Chumpi, which mean Island of Fire and Outer Island. If this curious tradition can be believed, it is likely that these are the Galapagos Islands." Markham had already suggested this in his Discovery of the Galapagos, published in The Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, Vol 14, No. 5, May 1892 p, 314 identifying them and using the meaning of their Quichua names: "... and discovered two islands which he named Nina chumpi and Hahua chumpi Chumpi means a girdle or encircled space in Quichua hence an island Nina means fire and Hahua outside The Fire Island and the Outer Island Albemarle and Narborough Islands it is supposed With regard to Nina chumpi there is later evidence of the activity of Galapagos volcanoes In 1546 smoke was seen issuing from a crater Darwin saw a small jet of smoke issuing from the summit of one of the craters in 1836."

The Galapagos have a volcano, several islands, but no gold, silver, or inhabitants (see this paper that states they were uninhabited until their discovery by the Spaniards in 1535).

José Antonio del Busto in his work "Tupac Yupanqui" offers two different alternative explanations. The first is that the balsa fleet sailed to the Galapagos Islands. The "bronze" chair could have come from Colombia, where the locals used an alloy that the Spaniards called "tumbaga" that blended gold and copper (and sometimes silver), it was unknown in Peru. The horse head could have been a seal head, a rare thing for a highlander Inca ruler to have seen before, and the black people could have been the dark people seen by Balboa in the Gulf of San Miguel, the Carecuá people (see my post on the "black Indians" that Balboa encountered there). The second is that they reached Polynesia where they captured some Melanesians, the bones and hide belonged to pigs, and the gold, and the bronze chair, absent in Polynesia (no metals there), was obtained on the Colombian coast, when the returned.

Final Comment

This post closes the series on Trans-Pacific contact in Prehistoric America and Polynesia. The index to all of these posts will be posted tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

The navigating skills of the Southern Tehuelches (Aonikenk)

The Tehuelche people were the original inhabitants of Patagonia, and they lived in the steppe, east of the Andean mountain range (to the west were the Chonos, Mapuches, and Huilliches in what is now Chile). They were the descendants of the ancient Patagonian Paleo-Indians. There are two versions about the origin of the name Tehuelche: one is that it comes from their words tehuel = “south” and chu = “land”, this suffix was later distorted by the Mapuche into che = “people”. The other is that the Mapuche called them chewuel = “surly”, “unsociable” and che = “people”, hence the “unfriendly people.”

We divide the Tehuelche people into two distinct groups, each with cultural and linguistic differences: the Northern Tehuelche (Günnuna Kenna or Gennakenk – which, in their language, meant “people”) and the Southern Tehuelche. The region located between the Senguer, Chubut, and Chico rivers was a flexible border between both groups.

Today's post will focus on the southermost of the Tehuelches and their navigation skills.

Southern Tehuelches and Selk'nam

The Southern Tehuelche were divided into two separate sub-groups, very similar except for their language: The northernmost were the Teushen (Boreal Southern Tehuelche), who lived in the north of central Patagonia, between the Santa Cruz and Chubut rivers. To the south were the Aonikenk or Aonek’enk (Austral Southern Tehuelche), which meant “People of the South.” They lived in the southern area, between the Santa Cruz River and the Strait of Magellan.

On the northern side of Tierra del Fuego Island were the Selk’nam (or Ona), who were “foot Indians” who never adopted an equestrian way of life because horses never reached their island before the arrival of the first white settlers. The Selk’nam were very closely related to the Tehuelche in culture and language; they had become separated from them when the sea level rose and flooded the Strait of Magellan, isolating them on Tierra del Fuego at the end of the last Ice Age.

The watercraft of the Aonikenk

Father Thomas Falkner (1707-1784) was an English Jesuit priest who lived in what is now Argentina in several Jesuit missions where he was in close contact with natives of different Patagonian tribes from 1730 until 1767, when the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuit order from South America. Upon returning to Britain in 1774, he wrote his book, Description of Patagonia, detailing his first-hand knowledge of the region. In it, he described how the natives crossed the Strait of Magellan:

"Tamu, the Yacana-cunnec Cacique, told me that they used a kind of float, with which they sometimes passed the Straits, and had communication with those of his nation". (p.92)

Falkner applied the name Yacanacunnec to what we now call the Aonikenk Tehuelche people. Perhaps "those of his nation" were the Fuegian Selk'nam natives, who were also part of the Chon native peoples, isolated on the Isla Grande, the main Tierra del Fuego Island after the last ice age.

Falkner added on p. 111 some more information:

"The last of the Tehuel nations are the Yacana-cunnees, which signifies foot-people ; for they always travel on foot, having no horses in their country. To the north, they border on the Sehuau-cunnees; to the west, on the Key-yus or Key-yuhues, from whom they are divided by a ridge ot mountains: to the east, they are bounded by the ocean; and to the south, by the islands of Tierra del Fuego or the South Sea. These Indians live near the sea, on both sides of the straits, and oftentimes make war with one another. They make use of light floats, like those of Chiloe to pass the straits."

Chiloe floats

Toribio Medina (Los aborijenes de Chile, 1882, p.188) describes the canoes and balsas of the Araucanians, which they used in rivers, lakes, and to cross between the mainland and Mocha Island (28 km - 17 mi.) They used rushes, reeds, puya, or straw, and tied them into bundles as floats (Read more about these vessels). They hollowed out canoes. Further north in the Peruvian and Chilean Atacama region the natives made floats using sealed sea wolf hides filled with air. But these were not hollow, you had to mount them.

However, I found a Source that mentions a native in Chiloe called Agustín Yapa who "crossed the channels to transport sheep in leather balsas" (Benjamín Vicuña, Catálogo de la biblioteca i manuscritos, 1886. p.44).

"Pelotas" or coracles

Tomás Harrington disagreed with Falkner. Harrington was an Argentine school teacher and ethnologist (1887-1967) who lived and worked in Patagonia, where he interviewed dozens of Tehuelche natives and compiled an extensive native vocabulary and listed many place names. In his Contribución al estudio del Indio Gününa Küne, Revista del Museo de La Plata, Vol.2 No.14 (new series), 1946, p.259) he noted that the name Yacana-cunes can be interpreted as "pedestrian people", and that the Keyus were the people who crossed the Strait. He added that it is impossible to define the racial origin of either group.

However, we have an eyewitness Antonio de Viedma (1742-1797), a Spanish naval officer who explored the coast of Patagonia and trekked inland discovering the lake that bears his name. In his diary (Diario de un viaje a la costa de la Patagonia, para reconocer los puntos en donde establecer poblaciones con una descripción de la naturaleza de los terrenos, de sus producciones y habitantes; desde el puerto de Santa Elena hasta la boca del Estrecho de Magallanes) he recounts his exploration from San Juliá to Lake Videma during which he had to cross the Chico River close to Corpen (map). On the way back the river was flooded:

"Day 27
At 8 a.m. we set off, and at 12 p.m. we reached the banks of the Rio Chico de Santa Cruz. Since the river was very high, the indian Ocopán decided not to ford it; so we stopped at a place they call Chonqueyr.
Day 28
At 5:30 in the morning, the indian Ocopán and Don León de Rosas, who had attempted to cross the river, succeeded and informed me. I intended to cross as they had, but upon reaching a channel, the stable hand couldn't restrain the horses, which bolted. So I ordered the pilot to cross and tell Julián to send me some swimming Indians so as not to risk my life or leave without gathering all the horses. He did so and found Julián at a place they call Quilion, from where he sent me three swimming Indians, equipped with hides and sticks to form a ball [in the original "pelota"] They arrived where I was at sunset and brought guanaco meat for us to eat.
Day 29
At 8:00 a.m., having prepared to cross the river, and feeling that the "pelota" that the indians were mkaking wasn't right, I ordered them to leave it, and that once they were on the other side of the river, I would try to cross with my horse. This was done, and we all crossed without the slightest incident; and continuing our journey, we arrived at Oenna at midday, where I found the pilot returning to join me, and some tents belonging to Chief Julián, whom I had sent for the same purpose; and here we spent the night."

Viedma ratifies the use of floats mentioned by Falkner.

Fifty-one years later Captain FitzRoy and Charles Darwin (the scientist who proposed the theory of evolution through natural selection) left the HMS Beagle to explore the Santa Cruz River from its mouth. They almost reached Lake Argentino before turning back due to lack of supplies. In his description of their journey (where the boat had to be hoisted by the sailors against the river's stron current), FitzRoy mentions the natives and their floats (FitzRoy, R. 1839. Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe. Proceedings of the second expedition, 1831-36, under the command of Captain Robert Fitz-Roy, R.N. London: Henry Colburn. See p. 344)

"...we arrived at the spot whence the smoke had issued, but saw no human beings: though marks of very recent fire, and numerous tracks of feet upon a soft muddy place at the side of the river, showed that a party of Indians had lately crossed over, and a smoke rising at some distance on the southern shore, pointed out where they were gone. At this spot there was about an acre of good pasture land, by the water side: and the breadth of the river itself was something less than usual, reasons which had induced the natives to select it as a crossing place*. To pass a river running at the rate of six or seven miles an hour, and about two hundred yards in width, can be no easy task to women and children. But as we saw many prints of very small feet on the muddy bank, both women and children must have crossed at this place with the men. How did they get over? there is no wood, neither are there rushes with which they might make balsas†. Perhaps some of the women and children were put into rough, coracle-like boats, made of hides‡, and towed across by the horses, holding by whose tails the men swam and perhaps many of the women. This method of holding by the tail, while swimming, is said to be better than resting a hand upon the horse's neck and holding by the mane. None of the Indians sit upon their horses while swimming."
* Marked 'Indian Pass' on the plan.
† Floats or rafts.
‡ "Me envió tres indios nadadores, provisto de cueros y palos para formar una pelota." (Diario de Viedma, p. 58.)

We know tht FitzRoy had read Falkner, and since he also quotes Videma, he probably imagined the coracles based on this information.

Argentine explorer and scientist Francisco Moreno (1852-1919) during his own exploration of the Santa Cruz River, in 1876-77, which reached Lake Argentino, cited FitzRoy's comments and added his own rmarks (See Viaje a la Patagonia Austral. Vol. 1, 1879. See p.256.):

"There is no doubt about the accuracy of these words; the place lends itself easily to crossing, for even though at this point the river is narrower than in other parts and runs at a speed of seven miles per hour, the undulation formed by its course and the disposition of the terrain make it preferable to other points. The Indians also confirm the assertion of the English admiral and have told me that before Pavon Island was populated they crossed the river at this point and at other places located further inland where, although the river is always too deep, as happens at the point I am concerned with, to allow passage on firm foot, they always find more or less ease in crossing it.
They carried it out, and even today they sometimes do, on rafts made of branches and tree trunks that the river carries in its upper course, and when trunks are lacking, as happens here in Chickerook Aiken, they built such rafts, although smaller, with the poles of their tents. On them they placed the small children and the few belongings; the women and men held onto the ends of the poles submerged in the water and swam alongside the raft. This was pulled by a horse, to whose tail it was tied, but before they had horses, the strongest swimmers of the Indians were in charge of steering it. This means of crossing the rivers is not without dangers, and it is frequent that one or more of the indigenous people drown; however, I have sometimes used it with excellent results in my exploration of the Limay and Negro Rivers. Our companion Isidoro assures me that he also knows that this point has been a crossing point for Indians. [a ford]"

This ford was located at Chickerook-Aiken (see approx. location in Google maps).

Allen Francis Gardiner (1794–1851) was a British Royal Navy officer and missionary, who starved to death in Tierra del Fuego, after an unsuccessful attempt to set up a mission among the Yaghans or Yamana. In 1842, he left us a description of a now unknown tribe, the Tachwell (see my post on them) who lived in the Southwestern Andes and frequented the Strait of Magellan. In 1842 Gardiner wrote (Accounts and Papers. COLONIES. Session 2 February 24 August 1843. 33. Vol XXXIII. House of Commons papers, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. HMSO, 1843) about them, and one part of his description mentions the use of hide-covered canoes to cross the Patagonian rivers:

"The district by the Tatchwell is wet and rainy and heavily timbered with trees of great size, their tents, dress, and stature is similar to that of the other Patagonian tribes; they have, however, canoes, but these are only employed for crossing rivers, and are merely a light frame covered with guanaco skins. They use no paddles but are towed across by their horses swimming before with a lasso attached to their tails."

Benjamin Bourne in "The Captive in Patagonia" (p.133) describes "boats" used by the Aonikenk to cross rivers. He had been sailing from Connecticut to California in 1849 during the Gold Rush and while stopping for supplies on the northern shores of the Strait of Magellan was taken captive by the Aonikenk and held prisoner. After three months he managed to escape when he saw a boat with a party of white people. They took him to the island on the Santa Cruz River, rescuing him.

Below is his description of native navigation and a plate from his book:

"We moved the next day in a northerly direction, and struck the river Santa Cruz, encamping about an eighth of a mile from its marshy banks...
Three or four days were passed in suspense, which was at last terminated by taking our line of march down the river. We halted at noon, at a point where the banks sloped gently to the water's edge, on either side of the deep and narrow channel. Active preparations were here commenced for crossing. Part of the horses were driven across the river, whilst a portion of the tribe were occupied in building boats to ferry their families and goods across. Their boats are constructed after a simple fashion. A quantity of bushes are cut and dragged down to the margin of the water. They take four tent-stakes, and lay them so as to enclose an area eight feet square, lashing them firmly together at the four corners. Four Indians then raise the stakes from the ground, while others place the skin covering of the tent over the frame, allowing it to sag down three or four feet. The edges of the skin are brought over the stakes, and fastened on the inside. The bushes, made ready for the purpose, are placed within, tops downward, round the entire circumference, and secured to the stakes, till the boat is completely timbered up. The bushes keep the skin distended, and give to the vessel an oval shape, so that, though square at the top, it bears a striking resemblance to a large iron pot. Its length and its breadth of beam are of course equal. When completed, it is firmly lashed from stem to sternpost, and from side to side, with a lariat, or green hide rope, forty feet long, to keep it from spreading or racking. I had no hand in modelling this witch of the wave, but, like an apprentice, did as I was ordered in forwarding the structure, and, when nothing else was required, "held on to the slack." It was at last completed, like the temple of Solomon, without the sound of axe or hammer; neither bolts, trenails nor caulking-iron, were required. We carried the barge down, and launched her in the stream. Two paddles were made by lashing two bladebones of the guanaco to sticks. Squaws, pappooses and baggage, were stowed away, till the boat was laden to the water's edge. I was directed to take passage with the family and household effects of the chief, and seated myself in the centre of the closely-packed craft. One end of a lariat was fastened to the boat, and the other tied to the tail of a horse. A savage mounted, with one rein attached to the wooden bit on the up-stream side. Two others took the oars, one on each side, and a squaw was stationed on the top-gallant forecastle for the purpose of singing, to insure good luck. All is ready. The old horse wades till the depth of water compels him to swim, and the boat is pushed off. The rider floats on the horse's back, kicking the water with his feet, holding the rein in one hand, and grasping the mane with the other. "Chew! chew!" he shouts, at the top of his voice. The black swan in the forecastle opens her capacious mouth and sings, "Yek yah, youri miti! yek yah, youri miti!" The two oarsmen dig away with might and main, while the younger fry swell the chorus with a "Yah! yah! yah!" The boat brings some heavy lurches to the windward, then yaws off to leeward; all owing to those lubberly oarsmen not meeting her with the helm in season. At length, after innumerable shiftings, we reached the opposite shore, and waded up on dry land. Several boats were constructed after the same unique model, and succeeded in crossing safely."

Ferrying the Santa Cruz. Bourne

So, all of these people confirm the use of guanaco hide-covered floats.

Across the Strait of Magellan

An interesting paper (Franklin, W.L. (2022) Guanaco colonisation of Tierra del Fuego Island from mainland Patagonia: Walked, swam, or by canoe? Geo: Geography and Environment, 9, e00110. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1002/geo2.110) explores why does Tierra del Fuego only have one large mammal, the Guanaco, and no rhea or pumas. The answer according to Franklin is that a large eruption by Hudson Volcano some 7,750 years ago wiped out the natives and large terrestrial fauna in the southern tip of Patagnoia, and that "Neither terrestrial vertebrates nor man were replenished from the adjacent mainland for 1000 years because the Strait of Magellan was a complete biogeographical barrier. Guanacos on Tierra del Fuego have lower genetic diversity compared with the mainland, suggesting it is a younger population. Empirical evidence and pivotal events of Patagonia's prehistory support one of three hypotheses: guanacos were introduced to Tierra del Fuego by early Holocene, guanaco-dependent, indigenous peoples from the mainland who repopulated Tierra del Fuego utilising the newly invented, skilfully crafted, seaworthy bark canoe."

Below is an image from Franklin's paper depicting the natives carrying guanaco across the Strait of Magellan.

Franklin therefore suggests " Guanacos and Fuegian dogs to Tierra del Fuego... by bark canoe. I propose that canoeists when they recolonised Tierra del Fuego in the Middle Holocene selectively introduced two ‘utility species’ of mammals to Tierra del Fuego that were of direct survival value for the existence of a terrestrial hunter-gatherer culture on the island: the guanaco because of its importance as a familiar and sustained source of food and skins (clothing and shelters), and the domestic Fuegian dog in a mutualistic relationship for its companionship, protection and hunting abilities..."

The bark canoe is what the Yamana or Yaghan people used until their demise in the late 1800s. However, the Selk'nam Fuegians were not known for owning boats or bark canoes. Their territory was the open grasslands and tundra, bogs and the fringe of the Fuegian Forests, on the north side of Tierra del Fuego. They seldom ventured into the woods of the Southern Andean ridges. They were pedestrian, land people, not sailors or canoe people like the Yamanas or their neighbors, the Alakaluf of the Western and Northwestern Tierra del Fuego canals and fjords. The Alakaluf used dugout canoes made from logs.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©