Through the first Antarctic night, 1898-1899

by Frederick Albert Cook

The matter of clothing with the Ona is a very simple affair; although the climate of their region is cold, stormy and even humid, they are very imperfectly dressed. The children run about in the snows either naked or nearly so. The men have a large mantle made of several guanaco-skins sewn together. This reaches from the shoulders to the feet, but it is not attached by either buttons or strings; it is simply held about the shoulders by the hands. The woman, when well dressed, wears a piece of fur attached about the waist and another loosely thrown about the shoulders, but she is not often well dressed and must generally be contented with a kind of mantle, carelessly suspended from the shoulders, which is allowed to fall upon the slightest provocation.

Nothing could be less like our idea of a home than an Ona house. It is proof to none of the discomforts of Fuegian climate. Rain, snow, and wind enter it freely, for it is a simple accumulation of tree branches thrown together in the easiest possible manner. Sometimes it has a conical shape, but more often it is only a crescent or breastwork, behind which the entire family sit or sleep. To the windward are thrown a number of skins to keep out the full blast of the wind, but from overhead the cold rains drizzle over poorly clad bodies, while the ground is always uncovered and cold. In the centre of this circle of shivering humanity, or just outside of it, is a camp-fire which, however, serves better for cooking purposes than for heating. The arrangement of the house is such that the heat all escapes. At night the fires are allowed to go out, and the adults, lying in a circle, place the children in the centre, with blankets of guanaco-skins spread over all. To keep the blankets from being blown off, and to add additional warmth, they next call the dogs, who take their positions on the top of the entire mass of quivering Indians. In former years it was a poverty stricken family who had not enough dogs to cover it out of sight; but the shepherds have now killed the dogs, and the Indians must rest cold and comfortless without their canine bedfellows.

There seems to be considerable love expended among the members of an Ona family. It is kindled with the first days of childhood, and it is still burning at ripe old age. It is, however, a love which is never appreciated by a white man, nor is it ever tendered to him except for little spasmodic periods. Nothing illustrates this point better than the experience of the pale-faced new-comers. Everybody who goes as a pioneer to the Cape Horn region is a bachelor. All buy, borrow, or steal wives when they decide to settle down upon a gold-mine or a sheep-farm. The Indian women, it must be confessed, are not unwilling to be bought or stolen, but they are not to the white man what they are to the copper-faced rival. In the Indian household she may be but one of several wives; she can claim only a small share of her husband’s affection; she must work hard, is poorly dressed, and is always half-starved; but she prefers this life as a steady thing to the entire heart of a pale-face, with the luxuries which he brings her.

Sunset Over Brabant Island.

One miner, a man with considerable experience and a collegiate education, gave me the following story bearing on the behaviour of the women of Fireland:

“The Ona girl is a queer and unnatural being; she may live with a white man, or even be lawfully wedded to him, but tender sentiments like love for her white admirer never enter or leave her dusky bosom. I came here ten years ago and struck a pay dig. I hadn’t time to go home to look for a new or to bring out an old sweetheart. Some Indians always remained unfriendly, but a few came with good intentions to the camp; these would now and then leave one or two of their wives for me to feed and dress, and in this way I learned to like them. One day there came to the camp an old couple with a young and bewitching daughter. She was only fourteen years old, but in form and manner she was just the jewel a gold-digger would be likely to pick up. I knew a little smattering of the native lingo and began to talk love to the girl at once; she didn’t seem to understand me. All the tender and nice things I tried to say seemed to be wasted. I talked to the parents; they quickly understood me, but they said a red woman might admire and respect a pale-face, but the warm fire, which was the principal charm of an Ona woman, was never kindled by a white man.

“In a short time I had learned to love the girl, and she didn’t seem to hate me, so I asked the parents if they would not leave her with me for a while that she might learn to like me, but they objected, whereupon I determined to steal her. After a lonely walk one evening in the forests, she agreed to be stolen. When the family left for the mountains I followed and picked the apple of my eye. Things went along happily—the honeymoon was a short dream, and the parents, for a long time, did not come to disturb me. I congratulated myself upon the success of my theft. Later, however, I learned that the parents knew about it all the time. I dressed the girl in expensive clothes, for which I had sent three thousand miles; fed her three full meals daily; built a nice warm hut; and did nearly all the camp work myself. She had not been fully dressed before, never had more than one meal a day, sometimes not one square fill in a week, and at home she always worked like a slave, shivering out a miserable, homeless existence in the forests. I showered her with luxuries and kind, gentle treatment.

“By this means, and by another which I shall mention presently, I was generally able to keep her as a permanent fixture about my household. About once a week, however, she found it necessary to go into the forests to gather certain fungi, which she said were necessary for her health. At first she returned promptly from these little jaunts and she always seemed livelier and refreshed by the recreation, but later she remained away one or two days at a time. This absence I could not endure, so I sought the reason for it and found that she was meeting a big, manly young buck. I could not blame her for being enamoured with him for I admired him myself. I took him into our camp and ever since there has been peace, and restfulness, and divided love in our wild home.”

This suggests a consideration of the aboriginal marriage relations, and the arrangement of the bonds of the family institution. Marriage, like almost everything Ona, is not fixed by established rules. It is arranged and rearranged from time to time to the convenience of the contracting parties. Women generally have very little to say about it. The bargain is made almost solely by the men, and physical force is the principal bond of union. For ages the strongest bucks have been accustomed to steal females from neighbouring tribes, and from neighbouring clans of their own tribe. The Onas being by far the most powerful Indians, have thus been able to capture and retain a liberal supply of wives. This easy gain of women has made polygamy a necessity, and the system is not condemned by men familiar with the people. A missionary who has been in constant contact with these Indians for thirty years gives it as his opinion that a plurality of wives was entirely satisfactory to their peculiar emotions and habits of life.