Ona Archery.
Ushuaia is a small town of about twenty-five sheet-iron houses, built at the base of the terminating hills of the Cordilleras. The background of the town is savagely picturesque. Two chains of mountains run eastward parallel to each other along the southern border of the main island of Tierra del Fuego, and these mountains give the surroundings of Ushuaia a remarkably wild but pleasing effect. The town has in itself very little of importance. It is a military and convict station for the Argentine Republic, and at present there is a pier in construction from which vessels can coal.
The government of the Argentine Republic with commendable liberality offered us coal and supplies free of cost at their stations. At Lapataia, a neighbouring town, the Belgica remained a week to coal. At Ushuaia and at Harbourton, we took in our last supply of fresh provisions. We were indebted to the Argentine government for the kind treatment at her hands, and to Mr. John Lawrence and Mr. Thomas Bridges (now deceased) and their families, for valuable aid in furnishing supplies and help in making Indian studies. It will not be possible to give more than a passing notice of our work among the very interesting tribes of Indians of this region. The anthropological observations, measurements and vocabularies will be given separate publication. For the present, the reader must be content with a few notes on the Onas.
CHAPTER VIII
A RACE OF FUEGIAN GIANTS
Comparative Size of an Ona and a Caucasian.
Harbourton, Jan. 6, 1898.
The Fuegians have been described, from time to time, since the country was first sighted and named by Magellan in 1520; but to-day they still remain almost unknown. In connection with the voyage of the Belgica we had unusual opportunities for studying their wild life and their weather-beaten land. They are not, as it is generally supposed, one homogeneous tribe, but three distinct races, with different languages, different appearances, different habits and homes.
In the western Chilean channels, living in beech-bark canoes and in dugouts, using mussels, snails, crabs and fish in general as food, are the short, imperfectly developed Alaculoofs. These are met by many vessels navigating the Strait of Magellan and most of our reports of Fuegians are limited to hasty glimpses of these people; but they are now nearly extinct, and they were always the lowest and the most dejected of the Fuegians.