their miserable condition.—degradation of body and mind.—powers of mimicry.—notions of barter.—causes of their low state of cultivation.—their food.—limpets.—cyttaria darwini.—constant migrations.—the fuegian wigwam.—weapons.—their probable origin.—their number, and various tribes.—constant feuds.—cannibalism.—language.—adventures of fuegia basket, jemmy button, and york minster.—missionary labors.—captain gardiner.—his lamentable end.
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. the eastern tribes, which inhabit the extensive plains of king charles’s south land, seem closely allied to the patagonians, and are a very different race from the undersized wretches farther westward. a mantle of guanaco skin, with the wool outside—the usual patagonian garment—loosely thrown over their shoulders, and leaving their persons as often exposed as covered, affords them some protection against the piercing wind. the condition of the central tribes inhabiting the south-western bays and inlets of this dreary country is much more miserable. those farther to the west possess seal-skins, but here the men are satisfied with an otter skin or some other covering scarcely larger than a pocket-handkerchief. it is laced across the breast by strings, and according as the wind blows it is shifted from side to side.426 but all have not even this wretched garment, for near wollaston island mr. darwin saw a canoe with six fuegians, one of whom was a woman, naked. it was raining heavily, and the fresh water, together with the spray, trickled down their bodies. in another harbor not far distant, a woman, who was suckling a recently-born child, came one day alongside the vessel, and remained there out of mere curiosity, whilst the sleet fell and thawed on her naked bosom and on the skin of her naked baby! these poor wretches were stunted in their growth, their faces bedaubed with white paint, their skins filthy, their hair entangled, their voices discordant, and their gestures violent.
the fuegians whom cook met with in christmas sound were equally wretched. their canoes were made of the bark of trees stretched over a framework of sticks, and the paddles which served to propel these miserable boats were small, and of an equally miserable workmanship. in each canoe sat from five to eight persons; but instead of greeting the strangers with the joyful shouts of the south sea islanders, they rowed along in perfect silence; and even when quite close to the vessel, they only uttered from time to time the word “pescheräh!” after repeated invitations some of these savages came on board, but without exhibiting the least sign of astonishment or curiosity. none were above five feet four inches high; they had large heads, broad faces, with prominent cheek-bones, flat noses, small and lack-lustre eyes; and their black hair, smeared with fat, hung in matted locks over their shoulders. instead of a beard, their chin exhibited a few straggling bristles, and their whole appearance afforded a striking picture of abject misery. their shoulders and breast were broad and strongly built, but the extremities of the body so meagre and shrivelled that one could hardly realize the fact that they belonged to the upper part. the legs were crooked, the knees disproportionately thick. their sole garment consisted of a small piece of seal-skin, attached to the neck by means of a cord, otherwise they were quite naked; but even these miserable creatures had made an attempt to decorate their olive-brown skin with some stripes of ochre. the women were as ugly as the men. their food consisted of raw, half-putrid seal’s flesh, which made them smell so horribly, that it was impossible to remain long near them. their intelligence was on a par with the filth of their bodies. the most expressive signs were here of no avail. gestures which the most dull-headed native of any south sea island immediately understood, these savages either did not, or would not give themselves the trouble to comprehend. of the superiority of the europeans they appeared to have no idea, never expressing by the slightest sign any astonishment at the sight of the ship and the various objects on board. it would however be doing the fuegians injustice to suppose them all on a level with these wretches. according to forster, they were most likely outcasts from the neighboring tribes.
mr. darwin, as well as sir james ross, describes the fuegians whom they met with in the bay of good success and on hermit island as excellent mimics. “as often as we coughed or yawned,” says the former, “or made any odd motion, they immediately imitated us. some of our party began to squint and look awry, but one of the young fuegians (whose whole face was painted427 black, excepting a white band across his eyes) succeeded in making far more hideous grimaces. they could repeat with perfect correctness each word in any sentence we addressed them, and they remembered such words for some time. yet we all know how difficult it is to distinguish apart the sounds in a foreign language.”
close to the junction of ponsonby sound with the beagle channel, where mr. darwin and his party spent the night, a small family of fuegians soon joined the strangers round a blazing fire. they seemed well pleased, and all joined in the chorus of the seamen’s songs. during the night the news had spread, and early in the morning other fuegians arrived. several of these had run so fast that their noses were bleeding, and their mouths frothed from the rapidity with which they talked; and with their naked bodies all bedaubed with black, white, and red, they looked like so many demons.
127. fuegian traders.
these people plainly showed that they had a fair notion of barter. mr. darwin gave one man a large nail (a most valuable present) without making any signs for a return; but he immediately picked out two fish, and handed them up on the point of his spear. here at least we see signs of a mental activity favorably contrasting with the stolid indifference of the fuegians seen by forster at christmas harbor; and mr. darwin is even of opinion that in general these people rise above the australians in mental power, although their actual acquirements may be less.
the reason why the fuegians are so little advanced in the arts of life,428 are partly to be sought for in the nature of the land, and partly in their political state. the perfect equality among the individuals in each tribe must retard their civilization; and until some chief shall arise with power sufficient to secure any acquired advantage, such as the domesticated animals, it seems scarcely possible that their condition can improve. but the chief causes of their wretchedness are doubtless the barrenness of their country and their constant forced migrations.
with the exception of the eastern part, the habitable land is reduced to the stones on the beach. in search of food they are compelled to wander from spot to spot; and so steep is the coast that they can only move about in their canoes. whenever it is low water, winter or summer, night or day, they must rise to pick limpets from the rock; and the women either dive to collect sea-eggs, or sit patiently in their boats, and with a baited hair-line, without any hook, jerk out little fish. if a seal is killed, or the floating carcass of a putrid whale discovered, it is a feast; and such miserable food is assisted by a few tasteless berries, chiefly of a dwarf arbutus, or by a globular bright yellow fungus (cyttaria darwini), which grows in vast numbers on the beech-trees. when young, it is elastic, with a smooth surface; but, when mature, it shrinks, becomes tougher, and has its entire surface deeply pitted or honey-combed. in this mature state it is collected in large quantities by the women and children, and is eaten uncooked. it has a mucilaginous, slightly sweet taste, with a faint smell like that of a mushroom.
the necessity of protecting themselves against the extremity of cold, and of obtaining their food from the sea, or by the chase of the reindeer or the white bear, forces the esquimaux to exert all their faculties, and thus they have raised themselves considerably higher in the scale of civilization than the fuegians, whose mode of life requires far less exertion of the mind. to knock a limpet from the rock or to collect a fungus does not even call cunning into exercise. living chiefly upon shell-fish, they are obliged constantly to change their abode, and thus they hardly bestow any thought on their dwellings, which are more like the dens of wild beasts than the habitations of human beings. the fuegian wigwam consists of a few branches stuck in the ground, and very imperfectly thatched on one side with a few tufts of grass and rushes. the whole can not be the work of an hour, and it is only used for a few days. at intervals, however, the inhabitants of these wretched huts return to the same spot, as is evident from the piles of old shells, often amounting to several tons in weight. these heaps can be distinguished at a distance by the bright green color of certain plants, such as the wild celery and scurvy grass, which invariably grow on them.
the only articles in the manufacture of which the fuegians show some signs of ability are a few ornaments and their weapons, which again are far inferior to those of the esquimaux. their bows are small and badly shaped, their arrows, which are between two and three feet long, feathered at one end and blunted at the other. the points are only attached when the arrow is about to be used, and for this purpose the archer carries them about with him in a leathern pouch. the shaft of their larger spears is about ten feet long,429 and equally thick at both ends. at one of the extremities is a fissure, into which a pointed bone with a barbed hook is inserted and tightly bound with a thread. with this weapon they most probably attack the seals; they also use it to detach the shell-fish from the rocks below the surface of the water. a second spear, longer and lighter than the first, with a barbed point, serves most likely as a weapon of war; and a third one, much shorter and comparatively thin, may perhaps be destined for the birds. the females know how to make pretty necklaces of colored shells and baskets of grass stalks. here, as with all other races of mankind, we find the germs of improvement, which only require for their development the external impulse of more favorable circumstances.
128. a fuegian and his food.
if it be asked whether they feel themselves as miserable as their wretched appearance would lead us to believe them, it must be replied that most travellers describe them as a cheerful, good-humored, contented people; and as mr. darwin finely remarks, “nature, by making habit omnipotent and its effects430 hereditary, has fitted the fuegian to the climate and the productions of his country.”
the number of these savages is no doubt very small, as seldom more than thirty or forty individuals are seen together. the interior of the mountainous islands, which is as little known as the interior of spitzbergen, is no doubt completely uninhabited; as the coasts alone, with the exception of the eastern and more level part of the country, where the guanaco finds pasture, are able to furnish the means of subsistence. the various tribes, separated from each other by a deserted neutral territory, are nevertheless engaged in constant feuds, as quarrels are perpetually arising about the possession of some limpet-bank or fishing-station. when at war they are cannibals; and it is equally certain that when pressed in winter by hunger they kill and devour their old women before they kill their dogs, alleging as an excuse that their dogs catch otters, and old women do not.
it has not been ascertained whether they have any distinct belief in a future life. they sometimes bury their dead in caves, and sometimes in the mountain forests. each family or tribe has a wizard, or conjuring doctor. their language, of which there are several distinct dialects, is likewise little known; it is, however, far inferior to the copious and expressive vocabulary of the esquimaux.
in 1830, while captain fitzroy was surveying the coasts of fuegia, he seized on a party of natives as hostages for the loss of a boat which had been stolen, and some of these natives, as well as a child belonging to another tribe, whom he bought for a pearl button, he took with him to england, determining to educate them at his own expense. one of them afterwards died of the smallpox; but a young girl, fuegia basket, and two boys, jemmy button (thus named from his purchase-money) and york minster (so called from the great rugged mountain of york minster, near christmas sound), were placed in a school at walthamstow, and moreover had the honor of being presented to king william and queen adelaide. three years jemmy and his companions remained in england, at the end of which time captain fitzroy was again sent out to continue the survey, and took with him these three fuegians, intending to return them to the place whence they had come. in this, however, he was disappointed; but at their own request york and fuegia were, with jemmy, deposited at woollya, a pleasant looking spot in ponsonby sound, belonging to jemmy’s tribe. his family, consisting of his mother and three brothers, was absent at the time, but they arrived the following morning. jemmy recognized the stentorian voice of one of his brothers at a prodigious distance, but the meeting, as mr. darwin, who witnessed the scene, relates, was less interesting than that between a horse turned out into a field and an old companion. there was no demonstration of affection; they simply stared for a short time at each other. three large wigwams were built for them, gardens planted, and an abundant supply of every thing landed for their use. jemmy, who had become quite a favorite on board, was short and fat, but vain of his personal appearance; he used always to wear gloves, his hair was neatly cut, and he was distressed if his well-polished shoes were dirtied. york was somewhat coarse431 and less intelligent, though in some things he could be quick. he became attached to fuegia, and as both were of the same tribe, they became man and wife after their return to tierra del fuego. she was the most intelligent of the three, and quick in learning any thing, especially languages.
thus these semi-civilized savages were left among their barbarous countrymen, with the hope that they might become the means of improving their whole tribe; but when captain fitzroy returned to the spot twelve months after, he found the wigwams deserted and the gardens trampled under foot. jemmy came paddling up in his canoe, but the dandy who had been left plump, clean, and well-dressed, was now turned into a thin, haggard savage, with long, disordered hair, and naked, except a bit of a blanket round his waist. he could still speak english, and said that he had enough to eat, that he was not cold, and that his relations were very good people. he had a wife besides, who was decidedly the best-looking female in the company. with his usual good feeling, he brought two beautiful otter skins for two of his best friends, and some spearheads and arrows made with his own hands for the captain. he had lost all his property. york minster had built a large canoe, and with his wife fuegia had, several months since, gone to his own country, and had taken farewell by an act of consummate villainy. he persuaded jemmy and his mother to come with him, and then on the way deserted them by night, stealing every article of their property. it was the opinion of all on board that the cunning rogue had planned all this long before, and that with this end in view he had desired so earnestly to remain with jemmy’s tribe rather than be landed on his own country. eight years after an english vessel put into a bay in the magellans for water, and there was found a woman, without doubt fuegia basket, who said, “how do? i have been to plymouth and london.” york minster was also seen in 1851. from captain snow, commander of the mission yacht “allen gardiner,” we have the last accounts of jemmy button in 1855. twenty-three years had not obliterated his knowledge of the english language, but he was as wild and shaggy as his untaught countrymen. in spite of his superior knowledge, he was treated as a very inferior personage by the members of his tribe; yet he declared that though he loved england, he loved his country still better; that nothing should induce him to leave it, and that he would never allow any of his children to quit their native soil.
other efforts have been made to civilize the fuegians. a spanish vessel having been shipwrecked on the eastern coast in 1767, its crew was hospitably treated by the natives, who even assisted in saving the cargo. out of gratitude, the governor of buenos ayres sent out some missionaries, who, however, totally failed to make any impression on the savages.
a no less unsuccessful attempt was made about the year 1835 by english missionaries; and the expedition of captain gardiner, who, accompanied by a surgeon, a catechist, and four cornish fishermen, sailed to fuegia in 1851, with the intention of converting the natives, proved equally fruitless, and had a far more tragic end. his measures for securing the necessary supplies of food were so ill calculated that the whole party died of hunger in spaniards’ harbor, on the southern coast. captain morshead, of the “dido,” had received orders on his432 way to valparaiso to visit the scene of the mission, and afford captain gardiner any aid he might require, but, on arriving at the cove, he found it deserted. after a few days’ search the bodies were discovered, and fragments of a journal written by captain gardiner gave proof of the sufferings which they had endured before death relieved them from their misery. the spot has received the name of starvation beach.
129. starvation beach.
