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Calderón, 91, is the last person to speak the millennia-old
ancestral Yámana language of the indigenous Yagán community that
has long inhabited the remote tip of South America, areas which
are now parts of Argentina and Chile.
"There used to be many Yaganes, my dad and mom were Yagán, so
when they were born, they always spoke the Yagán language and
that's how I was growing up," says Calderón, who did not learn
Spanish until she was nine years old.
Surrounded by photos of her family with the distinctive features
of the nomadic tribe, Calderón lives in a small house in Villa
Ukika, a town created by the Yagán on the outskirts of the
larger Chilean settlement Puerto Williams.
Calderón recalls with nostalgia the last person with whom she
could converse in Yámana, her late sister, and is excited about
the interest one of her daughters has shown in the language.
"She may learn to speak it," Calderón said with a smile.
While some dozens of Yagán people still remain, Calderón said
that over the generations, they had stopped learning the
language. Sometimes, she herself worries about words slipping
away.
"I forget things sometimes," Calderón told Reuters. "But after
thinking it though, they come back to me."
(Reporting by Jorge Vega; Writing by Adam Jourdan; Editing by
Bernadette Baum)
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