Chapter One, “The Earth as Archive,” is framed around the concepts of the trace and inscription practices. Its focus includes the collection of Charles Wellington Furlong, an American explorer who documented the Fuegian Archipelago in the early twentieth century, and the anthropologist Anne Chapman’s refutations of Darwin’s account of the Indigenous Fuegians. Furlong’s dermatoglyphs––archival footprints and handprints of Yagán and Selk’nam peoples––form the tracks by which Ogden thinks her way through the topics of absence, presence, and change. Colonial incursions and Indigenous resistances are theorized as “inscription practices”––not just territorial claims, but shimmering marks on the world.

Questions to Consider

• What is an inscription practice?

• What impact have individuals like Charles Wellington Furlong left on the Fuegian Archipelago?

• What is your initial reaction to seeing the dermatoglyphics in this chapter?

Examples of How Indigeneity is Represented in the Archipelago