The Keñewe or Yamjatrráwich

Abstract

The Indians of the South make abundant use of leather. In primitive times, the guanaro, the fox, the skunk, the puma, the hare, the huemul, the ostrich and perhaps the otter were the main suppliers of the rustic indigenous industry, and later the cow, the horse, the sheep and the goat. The skins of these imported animals have acquired visible preponderance and together with those of guanaco, fox and skunk, in frank decline, are the most used today. The puma and the almost extinct huemul have ceased to be victims of the aboriginal's needs, and the same happens with the hare (Dolichotis patagónica), whose skins, once turned into quillangos, were painted with exclusive designs. The other hare, called "European" in Patagonia to distinguish it from the native one, invaded those lands very recently. In Chubut, where the first ones began to be seen in 1920, it is now an indestructible plague, and the poor Indians take advantage of its meat, without industrializing the skin, which they sell for a few cents or a few grams of yerba mate, sugar or flour.