AN ONA FAMILY.
Modern explorers of Tierra del Fuego,—the prospectors and the plainsmen of Patagonia, believe that the Onas and the Tehuelches are of one origin. In proof of this it is alleged that the languages of the two are so much alike that the two tribes understand each other when brought together.
This brings us to one of the most remarkable facts in connection with the Onas. They do not build boats and neither do the Tehuelches of Patagonia, but considerable numbers of Onas have been found in Patagonia and may still be found there.
How these Onas got over to Patagonia without a boat is an interesting question, but it is not unlikely that they swam across on some hot day in summer at the first narrows in the Strait of Magellan. A strong swimmer could easily cross there at slack water, in spite of the low temperature of the strait.
The Onas in their native land have no horses. They have in these last years captured a good many from the sheep men, but they have eaten them as fast as they got them. Horse meat is the greatest of delicacies to them as it is to the Tehuelches. Their chief dependence for food is the guanaco that abounds in Tierra del Fuego and a prairie squirrel. In the chase they depend on bows and arrows and the bolas chiefly. But the Onas often kill the guanaco by surrounding a bunch and running them down. Thus the Ona has become, probably, the best cross-country runner in the world. One shepherd told me that often, when mounted on a first-class mustang, he had been obliged to chase an Ona five miles across the plain before he could get "within killing range of the thief," and even then the Indian was not unlikely to double or dodge and escape altogether.
The picture of an Ona Indian flying for life across the prairies with a relentless horseman in pursuit is something to stir the blood of the spectator; it would stir the blood of a citizen of "the boundless plains" of the United States in one way, and that of "the Quakers in the effete East" in another, however. But it is a picture often seen in these days in Tierra del Fuego.
The home of the Ona is as bad as any in the world. A saucer-shaped hollow big enough for a bed for all the family is scooped in the ground. In the little ridge about this poles and brush are placed, and over the weather side of the brush is thrown a skin or two. The fire is usually built just without, but near the door of the hut. It is more useful for cooking food than for imparting warmth. The Onas at night allow the fire to go out. To protect themselves from the cold they resort to a novel blanket. They all lie down on the ground with the children in the middle of the huddle, and then call their dogs to come and lie around and over them. It is a poverty-stricken Ona family that has not enough dogs to cover it out of sight. The dogs are a sharp-nosed but hairy lot, and they certainly keep the family warm.
The fact that all the tribes of the Cape Horn region build such wretched houses has always been taken as a proof of their lack of intelligence. How great a mistake was thus made in the case of the Yahgans has already been shown. The Onas, as will some day be learned, are also misjudged. The reason for building so frail a shelter is apparent on a brief consideration of their method of life. They are necessarily nomads. When the food of one spot was eaten they had to migrate. Now, the Onas had no horses or beasts of burden, as did the Tehuelches. They could not carry big skin tents about as the Tehuelches did. So they built a temporary shelter only. In the coldest weather a location near the seashore, where mussels and fish abounded, was usually chosen, and there they built larger and better wigwams. When they migrated to Patagonia and acquired horses they made skin tents. They did not make poor shelters from any lack of intelligence.