Magallanes could not complete the first trip around the world. On April 27th 1521 he dies during a combat against Filipin Indians. The expedition went on to the Molucas with only one ship left, the Victoria, commanded by Elcano. They got back to Spain on September 6th with eighteen survivors.

During three centuries the Europeans considered the Patagonia a terra nulius, (nobody’s land), a territory populated only by some thousands of nomads, wrapped in macabre legends and delirant myths.
Conquerors, explorers, adventurers and studying people like Drake, Cavendish, Schouten, Cook, Fitz Roy, Musters, Darwin, D`Orbigny contributed to seal the legend. This chain of myths that started with the appearance of the first "Giant Patagon", would continue like this until the XVIII century, with the legend of the Caesars, that situates in the patagon depths a city full of gold, inhabited by conquerors that live in the most complete joy. The travellers continued arriving and contributing to the amazement. Nevertheless, some adventurers preferred to ignore reality, and they even wanted to create a native empire, like the French one Orllie-Antonie of Tounens.
But in the times of the post Hispanic history, the empire already existed and the native to whom the Patagonia belonged, was the commander "Sayhueque" (1830-1903) Sir of the Patagonia. (the last big independent commander of Meridional America, whose name derives of the mapuche language" owner of the woollen"). These were times of war and conquest, and Sayhueque, an intelligent and bright man, tried by all possible means to avoid the penetration of invaders to their lands. For that mattered he intended to mediate between the different groups of natives and to agree on criteria; at the same time he seeker peace with government in Buenos Aires, and tried to keep mutual respect.
The situation, however turned unbearable in 1879. The troops of the army that were on the campaign of the Andes appeared on their territory and scattered the natives groups.
" For their template spirit and generous, firm and fair, was the paradigm of their people. A concluded way of being, for the pride of their tribes and of men"c.Curruhuinca-L.Roux.
The parade of myths does not end here, let us quote, for example, the rumanian Jules Popper, king of the gold searchers and the ruffians of "Tierra del Fuego"; or Butch Cassidy and his partner.
The Patagonia owns a remarkable aptitude to excite curiosity and imagination; it is shown by all the writers and famous travellers, from Neruda to Garcia Marquez, going through Blaise Cendrars and Saint-Exupery, whose work describes this enigmatic fragment of the continent.
In the 1640’s Sir Thomas Browne wonders how America did not have that" necessary creature; the horse" and how it is possible to hold then that all animals are originated on a same spot, Mount Arat.
There are stories that exceeded the fables of the poets, as those of the Spanish Juan de Torquemada who wondered if those animals had been brought by angels.
On the other hand, Gregorio Garcia does not see any difficulty on considering those animals as monsters, a mere degeneration of already known animals.
An issue of controversy is the origin of the word "Patagonia". According to a strong theory it comes from the Spanish "pata" which means foot.
When they first saw the Indian specie, according to Pigafetta, Magallanes exclaimed "oh how patagones they are" (meaning they had big feet)
According to the writer Bruce Chatwin the name is not born from the big foot prints on the sand from the natives but on the pages of a book "Primaleon", pages that are terrifying by "the weird beast called Patagon", this type of book was very much appreciated by the conquerors… When they knew how to read.
An anonymous author wrote this book and published it in Spain, in 1512, seven years before Magallanes’ trip. It was translated into English by Anthony Mundy, a friend of Shakespeare’s in 1596, and fifteen years before "The Tempest".
According to this genealogy Magallanes sees in the natives the patagon monster and Shakespeare finds in him a model for "Caliban".
The extremes of solitude on never ending seas that suffered Europeans as Sarmiento de Gamboa…" to die or do what he came for, or do not come back to Spain or where he was never seen again".
The same pattern is repeated- as written by the historian J.H:Elliott- "it seems that at a certain point, the Europeans’ mind is blocked; as if with so much to see, assimilate and understand, the effort overwhelmed them, making them go back to their traditional vision of the world".
"I could have died there and my body would have been eaten by the birds and my bones whitened by the sun and the wind, and no one would have found them, and nobody would have remembered to the cavalryman that went out one morning and never came back" said the adventurer Guillermo Hudson.
"Patagonia is an example of the weird, the monstrous, the fatally attractive. Bruce Chatwin.
"Out there, in the heart of the land, one is alone, with nothing more near or touchable than the wind, wild fearsome illusions and distances with no limits"
H Hesketh Prichard

In the Patagonia, the fantastic is so true that any reality that is not imaginary seems not to belong to it.
The big island of "Tierra del Fuego" was inhabited by an ethnic group called Yamana ten thousand years ago.

They formed family groups of up to forty people, they fed from guanacos, sea lions, seaweed, whales, mushrooms and wild fruit collected in the cold forest.
Their thick skin was protected from the cold with oils and animal fat. The woman wore a sex cover of soft bird skin. When it was extremely cold they only wore a little cape of seal skin. Everybody wore art; their bodies painted with lines and dots in black, white and red. They built their houses with branches in a dome form. That was covered with grass, mud or leather. In the XVI century ships from a distant empire started sailing through their marine territory.

On one expedition of the British ship "Beagle" in 1829 his captain Fitz Roy kidnapped four natives accusing them of the disappearance of one of their whale boats. They called the eldest of the crew Memory Boat (in memory of the missing boat), a twenty year old kid was named York Minster (after the English Monastery), a ten year old girl "Fuegia Basquet" and a fourteen year old boy "Jemmy Button" because it was said that his father had been given a button when the kid was taken away. Soon after they arrived io England the eldest of the Yamana died of chickenpox The other three young men were sent to a monastery. They were taught English, Christian religion and horticulture. At Saint James court they were introduced to the King Guillermo IV and the Queen Adelaida. The latter gave the girl her coif as a present and the King gave her his ring among other presents. After two years the three natives went back to their land on a new trip, together with the naturist Charles Darwin, and an Anglican missioner called Mattheus destined to live among the natives to continue their "civilisation". After they came back and settled on the big island, Jemmy’s mother almost did not recognise him.
The Yamana sailors were dressed in English style; they wore gloves, had short hair and shiny shoes. Later on, the missioner Mattheus married Fuegia to York, but afterwards ought to an uncultural intelligence, Fitz Roy had to withdraw Mattheus from the place. After fifteen months, when the Beagle ship went back to the surroundings, their crew deviced a canoe with natives and Darwin says about it "there whose a skinny boy with long hair and almost naked… that was Jemmy!".
The captain persuaded him to get close to the ship and invites him to eat. Jemmy showed he had not lost his manners, declaring that he was not cold nor hungry and that he did not wish to go back to those distant lands. It was evident that as the European influence rose the changes introduced in the natives’ culture and customs were affecting their biological defences, killing them in the short run. Years later on November 6th 1859, a group of English marines and missioners heard Dominican mass in the first church half built on the Yamana territory. A group of natives attacked and killed them. The only one that saved his life was a young cook. Later the English sent another ship to see what had happened to the one sent before finding the only survivor. The cook retold the episode and confessed that the massacre had been carried out by no other than Jemmy Button!.
However, the English continued, they sent a reverend; Thomas Bridges, who settled with his family and a group of helpers in a new area of the big island Tierra del Fuego. He learned the language of the natives and wrote a complete dictionary. After some years the same Bridges found Fuegia Basquet, who by that time was widowed and sick and more than fifty years old. To comfort her he reminded her of her occidental and Christian formation.
Fuegia rejected him, as she went away on the cold landscape, she smiled sadly…