The Selk'nam called Gusinde Mankasen (man: sombra / figura, kasen: cazador), due to the photographs that he took and that, according to his diaries, circulated among the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, which helped him to create bonds as he encouraged them to recognize themselves and their peers on the images. He wrote notes on some photos, which eventually helped to identify the ones portrayed.
The power of the images and their relationship to magic was a constant among indigenous people, more when both matched during the early years of the technique, since seeing oneself or another as an inanimate object, a shadow or a replication of reality is, at the very least, disturbing. As Sontag points out, regarding the power that photographs possess with regard to material reality, they impact it, transforming it into a shadow of it (Sontag, 1980, p. 189).
The anthropologist's photographic activity marked his contact with the natives, because the prints were given to them (as well as gifts and medicines) with the intention of gaining their trust and allowing them to share their intimacy in order to carry out his study. No one before had ever achieved this proximity, nor a deep understanding of their spiritual world. (Gusinde, 1920) (Palma, 2019).
On every expedition and while doing his research, Gusinde lived and shared live with the Fuegians their meals, joy, sat down with them around the bonfire and, according to his own words, "with no superiority of the civilized". He added that "...I've adapted, molded myself to their being so intimately that I got to feel with them and like them" (Gusinde, 2910, p. 148).
Although it is unknown whether Gusinde had any studies in photography, it is possible that he was self-taught (Palma, 2019). The aesthetic quality of photograps is out of question. The shots are assertive and eloquent, the compositions are balanced and bring us closer to a culture that, together with its writings, allows us to understand the irreparable loss of their lives, which the Chilean State did not have the will to protect.
The photographs -transformed into slides- were used by Gusinde to present the customs of the planet's southernmost peoples, in specialized lectures that were often publicized by the national press. The study of the Fuegians was his first approach to the photographic technique, one he would use throughout his career and which also legitimized his work.
Carla Franscheschini