Magallanes 1520-2020: historias, pueblos, imágenes

Jemó – 127 Al refereirse al informe del Cirujano Bynoe, el Capitan Fitz Roy alude al as- tillero encontrado el 12 de Abril de 1830 en Bah a Easter, golfo Almirante Montt: Mr. Bynoe remarked, that in the neighborhood of Easter Bay (Obstruction Sound), the country had much the appearance of English park scenery; large clumps of trees growing straight and tall, with intervening spaces of clear ground covered with long grass. In this place he found great numbers of wigwams and deserted canoes. Some of the former were of large dimensions, and various sha- pes: two were like inverted whale-boats, each of which might hold forty or fifty people and in the long ones (six feet high), Mr. Bynoe could walk upright. All of them were built of slight materials, such as branches of trees covered with long grass. Five or six large wigwams stood together in each place; and near them canoes had evidently been built, for many trees had been felled and barked close by. The traces of fire were visible, which had been trained around the roots of the trees; and many large pieces of bark were lying about, partly sewed together. Four good canoes were found in one place, one of the four being quite new: and there were many old or broken ones. They also saw on nearly every sandy point a neatly-constructed small wigwam, about two feet high, at the entrance of which was a platted rush noose, intended as a snare to catch swans probably, which were numerous about the adjoining grounds, and generally roost on those sandy points. (1839: 199). Eran necesarias al menos tres planchas de corteza para la base del casco y los laterales. La primera, más gruesa, era cortada en forma lenticular, se empleaban hojas afiladas de Mytilus , y era curvada mediante la aplicación alternada de agua y calor. Valga destacar que en todos los casos la corteza deb a ser procesada en lugares sombreados para evitar la deshidratación e impedir que se vuelva quebra- diza ( cf . Despard 1863, Martial, Hydes y Deniker 2007). Para el caso de los canoeros del sur, una vez perfilada la plancha base, se fi- jaba un per metro de varas clavadas en tierra con la forma de la canoa a manera de bastidor. Este conjunto serv a para apoyar las planchas laterales antes de la costura de las partes. Hecho eso, se buscaban dos varas de una longitud superior al de la borda 10 , usualmente de canelo ( Drimys winteri ) o maitén ( Maytenus ma- gellanica ), y se dispon an para su uso como regala 11 . En esta parte del proceso, los constructores realizaban una serie de agujeros para pasar por ellos el encordado, 10 Borde superior del francobordo de una embarcación. 11 Pieza de la estructura lateral que remata la borda en su extremo superior.