He arrives in Chile in 1912. At 26 years old, he travels from Europe to take up his first assignment.
Not long after being ordained a priest of the Society of the Divine Word, he joins the German School of Santiago, Chile. There, he combines both religious and academic tasks. Soon takes over as head of department at the Museo de Etnología y Antropología of Chile. From there, he finds support in order to use the summer months, during vacations, doing research. He sets ethnographic expeditions (between 1918 and 1934) to approach to and meet the indigenous communities from the southernmost part of Chile: Yaganes (Yahgan or Yámana), Onas (or Selk'nam) and Alacalufes (or Kawésqar).
During his first journey he notes how fast the Fuegian population decreases, due to their contact with Europeans, and realizes how urgent it is to save what is left from these cultures. He knows that meeting such goal is a race against time. Thus, and with deep love and respect for the inhabitants of these inhospitable territory, he plans on returning there in the future.
With scare resources, but the support of good will souls and the help of the Fuegians themselves, Father Gusinde carried out four expeditions, which allowed him to mainly focus in the study of the Yahgan people. To gain their trust, to get to know their soul and to get to understand them, he decides to join them in their day-to-day life. He renounces his own comfort, lives according to their habits, tolerates the rough weather conditions and faces their same resources scarcity.
They open up their hearts and souls to him. He wants their spiritual and cultural heritage to be appraised. They, on the other hand, let him immortalize them with his photographic camera, invite him to join the sacred ceremonies they celebrate and share with him their most precious stories. "They wanted me to witness their most precious possessions, he emphasizes in 'The Indians of Tierra del Fuego'."
Gusinde is meticulous. He records and takes notes of the most ignored, poorly or incorrectly explained aspects, such as their spirituality. He realizes that they share an akin monotheistic vision, and their basic social structure is the monogamous family. Ones use canoes to move through the channels (in the case of Alacalufes and Yahgan) and the third walks through the plains (Onas). Also he observes that, socially speaking, they neither form a cohesive group nor obey to heads or central governments.
He remarks that they all coexist in complete harmony with nature, since they are fully adapted to the environmental hostility. Each aspect of their life is efficiently developed in order to survival. Gusinde says that the canoe used by the Yahgan, made of trunk bark, is the most efficient way to travel through Cape Horn Archipelago. Explains that their homes are meant to resist the winds, and notices how their nudity provides a quick drying of the bodies near the bonfire. Thus, each habit shows a perfect adaptation to the habitat. Opposed to what some travelers presumed, they do not denote lack of skills, wit or savvy.
Martin Gusinde studies the culture of such ancestral people, and provides invaluable information regarding their historical, ethnological, anthropological, somatological and linguistic aspects. Showing in an unprecedented way their idiosyncrasy, he also manages to -in his own words- get "their voices perpetuated in phonograph cylinders".
In 1926, after spending 14 years in Chile, Gusinde returns to Vienna, and begins to write the pioneering and great work -consisting in nothing less than 9 volumes- about the southernmost tribes in the world.
At the same time and for 40 years, he undertakes dozens of expeditions, ethnological researches in different corners of the planet -such as Arizona, New Mexico, Congo, Philippines and New Guinea.
Thus, Martín Gusinde dedicated a large part of his life to rescuing, for Chilean and human memory, the significant cultural value of the Fuegian tribes. His study, published in his monumental work, was translated into Spanish and is originally entitled "Die Feuerland Indianer."
In 1969, at 83 years old, he dies in Vienna. Thanks to his remarkable contributions to the understanding and appreciation of primitive cultures, to this day he is considered one of the world's most distinguished ethnologists.
*Photograph: memoriachilena.cl
To learn more, you can visit:
http://www.memoriachilena.gob.cl/602/w3-article-3602.html and watch the following video made by Servicio Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural.