Fuegians

“ The only habitation of the Fuegians, cold as is the climate of their country, is the hut of branches, their only clothing is the skin of a fox, deer, or guanaco, which they throw over the right shoulder or over the left, according to which is exposed to the wind. They have no domestic animal except the dog, which assists them in hunting, and is of no mean service to them; for their only weapons are a javelin tipped with a sharp bone, and bows, with flint-pointed arrows. They are, in fact, contemporaries of our civilization, still in their palæolithic age. They are not good fishermen. ”

“ The Fuegians are as degraded a people as any on the face of the earth, with just intelligence enough to maintain themselves by hunting and fishing, by the help of dogs, which, it is said, they prize so much that they would rather, in time of scarcity, eat up an old mother than a dog; and they are churlishly inhospitable to strangers, although with an unusual facility for imitating their language, nor had any one ever attempted their conversion. ”

“ Ehrenberg examined some of the white paint with which the Fuegians daub themselves, and found it to be composed of infusoria, including fourteen polygastrica, and four phytolitharia, inhabitants of fresh water, all old and known forms!!
Again of the Fuegians: “Simple circumstances—such as the beauty of scarlet cloth or blue beads, the absence of women, our care in washing ourselves—excited their admiration far more than any grand or 246 complicated object, such as our ship. ”

“ Perhaps in consequence of the scantiness, the irregularity, and the quality of their food, the Fuegians are a very short race of men, often shorter than the average Bosjesman of Southern Africa, and even lower in the social scale. They ought not to be called dwarfs, as is too often the case, their bodies being tolerably proportioned, and their figures not stunted, but simply smaller than the average of Europeans, while the muscular development of the upper part of the body is really wonderful. ”

“ A day or two after, the weather improved, and the Fuegians dispersed, probably for want of food, some going to the northward, but the greater part along shore to the southward. These people pointed upwards to the sky, when they were going away, repeating the word 'Pecheray.'
This was our last interview with the wretched Fuegians. Naturally petulant and quarrelsome, they are also ever intent upon mischief; the fear of punishment alone restraining them. Weakly-manned vessels passing through this Strait should always avoid them, if they are numerous ”

“ The wilds of Tierra del Fuego are inhabited by a race of men generally supposed to occupy the lowest grade in the scale of humanity. In a far more rigorous climate, the Esquimaux, their northern antipodes, exhibit skill in their snow huts, their kayaks, their weapons, and their dress; but the wretched Fuegians are ignorant of every useful art that could better their condition, and contrive scarcely any defense against either rain or wind.
But even among the Fuegians there are various grades of civilization—or rather barbarism. ”

“ Next, Fitzroy did not think that the Fuegians believed in a future life. Lastly, when were medicine-men such notable moralists? The worst spirits among the neighbouring Patagonians are those of dead medicine-men. As a rule everywhere the ghost of a 'doctor-wizard,' shaman, or whatever he may be called, is the worst and wickedest of all ghosts. How, then, the Fuegians, who are not proved to be ancestor-worshippers, evolved out of the malignant ghost of an ancestor a being whose strong point is morality, one does not easily conceive. ”

“ There is no reason to believe that the Fuegians decrease in number; therefore we must suppose that they enjoy a sufficient share of happiness, of whatever kind it may be, to render life worth having. Nature by making habit omnipotent, and its effects hereditary, has fitted the Fuegian to the climate and the productions of his miserable country.
After having been detained six days in Wigwam Cove by very bad weather, we put to sea on the 30th of December. Captain Fitz Roy wished to get westward to land York and Fuegia in their own country. ”

“ The Fuegians are truly described as the most abject and miserable race of human beings. The Esquimaux of the northern regions are as far superior to them in intelligence and civilization as are the New Zealanders of the southern hemisphere ”

“ Although not tall, the Fuegians are very thick-set and enormously powerful. One of them, named by the sailors York Minster, was a match in point of muscular strength for any two of the men belonging to the ship. The women are as strong as the men. ”

“ They are certainly closely related to the Fuegians who live south of the main Straits of Magellan, from whom, however, they differ sufficiently to show a tribal distinction. Fitzroy, in enumerating six tribes of Fuegians, denominates those of whom I speak as "the Channel or Chonos tribe." They lead a wandering life, constantly shifting in their canoes from place to place, and travelling in families of about twelve individuals, all of whom stow in the same canoe, and sleep in the same hut. ”

“ The Fuegians, or Canoe Indians, as they are generally called, from their living so much on the water, and having no settled habitations on shore, are a much smaller race of savages, inhabiting Tierra del Fuego—literally Land of Fire—so called from the custom the inhabitants have of lighting fires on prominent points as signals of assembly. ”

“ Captain Fitz Roy could never ascertain that the Fuegians have any distinct belief in a future life. They sometimes bury their dead in caves, and sometimes in the mountain forests; we do not know what ceremonies they perform. Jemmy Button would not eat land-birds, because “eat dead men”; they are unwilling even to mention their dead friends. We have no reason to believe that they perform any sort of religious worship; though perhaps the muttering of the old man before he distributed the putrid blubber to his famished party may be of this nature. ”

“ In this volume we are told, too, that even the Fuegians, who in times of scarcity kill and eat their old women for food, are generally affectionate, and until the whites interfered with their social order the old often had considerable authority. They sometimes prepare programs for ceremonials, which are very strictly observed by a hundred younger men. ”

“ The workman must at least have been as great as his work; and if the ruins of Central America tell us of architects greater than any that country could produce at present, the magnificent ruins in the dialects, whether of Fuegians, Mohawks, or Hottentots, tell us of mental builders whom no one could match at present. Even in their religious beliefs there are here and there rays of truth which could never have proceeded from the dark night of their actual superstitions. The Fuegians, according to Captain FitzRoy, believe in a just god and a great spirit moving about in forests and mountains. ”

“ Even the wives of the chiefs were obliged to drudge unless they had slaves. At their marriages there is little ceremony, the bride being simply handed over to the man as his property. The Fuegians, according to Fitzroy, when reduced to a state of famine, became cannibals, eating their old women first, before they kill their dogs. ”

“ From their practices it is evident that the European Stone men of the Drift could also manage to prepare their food, chiefly meat, by fire without cooking vessels. The Fuegians lay the piece of meat to be roasted on the glowing embers of a dying wood fire, and turn it with a pointed forked branch so as to keep it from burning. ”

“ Captain King’s account of the Fuegian women is not attractive.
“The hair of the women is longer, less coarse, and certainly cleaner than that of the men. It is combed with the jaw of a porpoise, but neither plaited nor tied; and none is cut away, except from over their eyes. They are short, with bodies largely out of proportion to their height; their features, especially those of the old, are scarcely less disagreeable than the repulsive ones of the men. About four feet and some inches is the stature of these she-Fuegians, by courtesy called women. They never walk upright ”

“ Fire is, indeed, a necessary of life to the Fuegians, not so much for cooking as for warming purposes. Those who have visited them say that the natives always look cold and shivering, as indeed they are likely to do, considering that they wear no clothes, and that even in their houses they can but obtain a very partial shelter from the elements. ”

“ Many nations, no doubt, have fallen away in civilisation, and some may have lapsed into utter barbarism, though on this latter head I have met with no evidence. The Fuegians were probably compelled by other conquering hordes to settle in their inhospitable country, and they may have become in consequence somewhat more degraded; but it would be difficult to prove that they have fallen much below the Botocudos, who inhabit the finest parts of Brazil. ”

“ Before there could be a possibility of convincing them of even the temporal benefit of the white man’s residence among them, they would have stripped and carried off everything from persons who would refrain from hurting them. So, once more, the Captain drew up the net which had taken nothing, decided that the only mission which would suit the Fuegians must be afloat, and went on to Payta in the Clymene. ”

“ Hardly any nation is more barbarous than the Fuegians, but I hear from Mr. Bridges, the Catechist to the Mission, that, "when these savages have a large, strong, and active bitch, they take care to put her to a fine dog, and even take care to feed her well, that her young may be strong and well favoured." ”

“ Captain Fitz Roy, to avoid the chance of an encounter, which would have been fatal to so many of the Fuegians, thought it advisable for us to sleep at a cove a few miles distant. Matthews, with his usual quiet fortitude (remarkable in a man apparently possessing little energy of character) , determined to stay with the Fuegians, who evinced no alarm for themselves ”

“ It is not unlikely that the natives get plenty of young seals during the season when the animals are breeding on the outlying rocks.
In Punta Arenas I purchased from a trader a rough Fuegian basket, but did not ascertain from what tribe it was derived.
Our photographs show Fuegians with clothing, but we had supplied it. We had at last found primitive man. It is doubtful if he exists in greater simplicity anywhere else to-day. ”

“ He then turned his back, and flung the stone in exactly the opposite direction, so that it struck the trunk of a tree, and rebounded to the canoe. The men seem to think the sling a necessity of life, and it is very seldom that a Fuegian is seen without it either hung over his neck or tied round his waist.
It is rather a curious fact that the Fuegians always devote themselves to one particular weapon. One, for example, will be pre-eminent in the use of the bow, another will excel in throwing stones with the hand, and a third will give all his energies to the sling. ”

“ Still, the process of fire making is not a very easy one, and the Fuegians never use their pyrites except when forced to do so, preferring to keep a fire always lighted, and to carry a firestick with them when they travel. ”

“ The Fuegians are believed to still practice cannibalism. One writer tells us that criminals and prisoners of war are thus disposed of, and that the last crew of shipwrecked seamen who fell into their hands were roasted and eaten by them. Their hostile purposes are well understood, for whenever they dare to exercise such a spirit they are sure to do so. They cautiously send out a boat or two to passing vessels, with whom a little trading is attempted, the main body of natives keeping well out of sight ”

“ It is that the Fuegians capture these birds by tying a string to the legs of certain small birds, and force them into the petrels’ nests, whereupon the rightful owners, attacking and following the intruders as they are jerked out by the cunning decoyers, are themselves captured. ”

“ They are also acquainted with the method of obtaining it by friction, which is a slower and more laborious process."—Pre-Historic Times. Lubbock, p. 400. ↑ In Tierra del Fuego, Weddell says that the Fuegians procure fire by means of iron pyrites and a flinty stone. They catch the sparks in a dry substance resembling moss. It is fashionable to speak of the Australians as the most degraded amongst all the races of mankind: consider the condition of the Fuegians, and decide. ”

“ Besides the fungi I have spoken of, the Fuegians live chiefly on fish and the shell-fish they gather on the rocks, though they eat birds and grubs of all sorts—and, I fancy, nothing comes amiss to them. We observed that a platform of clay was placed in each canoe, on which to place a fire. There was also a sort of well at the bottom of the canoe, and out of it a man was constantly employed in bailing the water, which leaked in through the seams. The men we met were of good size, and robust ”

“ The Chinese, who were civilized before our history began, are not as a race addicted to lechery; the Fuegians, who have scarce learned to clothe themselves against the bitterest climate in the world, do not even seek privacy for their almost promiscuous intercourse. ”

“ The passengers were about as much disappointed as the Fuegians, for having all read and heard of them, we anticipated much gusto, as the Spaniards say, in making their acquaintance.
Scientists have long differed as to whether the Firelanders were cannibals, but this point has been recently settled by a practical demonstration, and there is no doubt that they actually eat human flesh when they can get it, and pick the bones very clean. ”