Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/17

Rh arrows, or rough paddles for ship biscuit and misfit clothing. They were even willing to trade their children. The canoe was apparently the only article not for sale. It seems to represent home and fireside, the few brush and leaf-covered bowers we saw on shore being merely hastily made night camps and wet ones at that. The canoe conveys the people from mussel bank to sea-bird rookery in the continual search for food. It is not likely that they often get seals, as their spears appear too rude—merely short poles with the bark on, the bone points being tied on in the roughest manner. Besides there never seemed to be enough seal skins to provide each member of the group with a cover for his shoulders. Naked children huddled close to their mothers for shelter from wind and rain. We made no measurements, but my recollection is that none of these savages exceeded five feet in height. The faces of the adults were all utterly barbarous. We saw but one dog among these people, where he may have been of more importance as possible food than as an aid in the capture of food. 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.

The natives of Fuegia are quite different from the Patagonian tribes and are known as the Onas, inhabiting the interior of Tierra del Fuego proper and subsisting largely by the hunt of the wild guanaco;