Fuegian Ethnology

Abstract

IN Guido Cora's Cosmos for May, 1883, Lieut. Bove, of the Italian Antarctic Expedition, supplies some interesting details on the little known inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, amongst whom he spent some time in the spring of the present year. He speaks highly of the English missionaries stationed at Ushiwaya, in Beagle Channel, who have succeeded in introducing a few rudimentary notions of human culture amongst several tribes hitherto supposed to be quite irreclaimable. As had long been;uspected, the archipelago is found to be occupied not by one but by three distinct races, the Alacalufs in the west, the Onas in the east, and the Yagans in the south. Of these the Yagans, who stretch from the north side of Beagle Channel southwards to Cape Horn, appear to be the true aborigines. They have been driven to the southernmost and most inhospitable islands by the Onas and Alacalufs, both intruding from the mainland. The Onas, who are clearly of Tehuelche origin, penetrated rrom Patagonia across the eastern arm of Magellan Strait, into the large island of King Charles South Land (Eastern Tierra del Fuego), which they now hold almost exclusively. In the same way the Alacalufs, of Arau-canian stock, made their way from the Chilian Andes, across the western arm of Magellan Strait, into the western islands, which they now occupy from Cape Pillar;o Stewart Island, at the Pacific entrance of Beagle Channel. They number scarcely more than 2000 altogether, while:he Yagans and Alacalufs are estimated by the English missionaries at about 3000 each, giving 8000 for the whole archipelago.