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............