That the Chileno, Patagonian, and Fuegian populations are sections of a single stock I have no doubt. Whether, however, this stock may not contain other branches is uncertain.
There are three frontiers to the northern part of the area in question—the western, the central, and the eastern. The western has been already noticed: it is the country of the Changos, Atacamas, and other portions of the old Peruvian empire. Nevertheless it is probable, that the population may be Chileno, and still more likely that it may be transitional to the Peruvian and Moluché groups.
The central division has yet to be studied in detail; since we have yet to learn at what part of Central South America the Pampa population changes for that of the Gran Chaco,[162] and of what nature this change is. Nay, the Southern Indians of the Gran Chaco may, like the southern members of the Peruvian empire, be either Patagonian (or Pampa-Patagonian) or transitional.
The eastern portion of the division in question is the parts about the mouth of the River Plata.
The population, which I suppose to have been conterminous with the Patagonians (i.e. the Puelché portion of them) is that of—
THE CHARRUAS.
Of the language I have seen no vocabulary. In physical appearance the Charruas approach the Patagonians; and equally akin are they to the fiercer tribes of that division in their habits and characters.
The Charrua population—for we are now within the territory of the Spanish Republic, and in areas where the displacement of the aborigines has been the consequence of contact with the European—is known only in fragments; whole sections of it being, at the present moment, either extinct or incorporated. The original divisions, however, were as follows:—
1. The Charruas Proper; 2. the Chayos; 3. the Chanás; 4. the Guenoas; 5. the Martedanes; 6. the Niboanes; 7. the Yaros; 8. the Minoanes; 9. the Caaiguas; 10. the Bagaez; 11. the Tapés. Of these the Chanás and Niboanes inhabited, at the arrival of the Spaniards, the islands of the Uruguay, at the junction of the Rio Negro. The Guenoas and Martedanes connected themselves with the Portuguese of the Colonia del Sacramiento, and were at enmity with the Yaros and Minoanes. The Chayos are the first that disappear from history, probably from having become amalgamated with the Yaros.