430 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



Rios Chupat and Negro, and the Southern Tehuelches (Yacana, 

 Sehuan, etc.), south to Fuegia, no longer holds good since the 

 general displacement of all these fluctuating nomad hordes. A 

 branch of the Tehuelches are unquestionably the Onas of the 

 eastern parts of Fuegia, the true aborigines of which are the 

 Yahgans of the central and the Alakalufs of the western islands. 



Hitherto to the question whence came these tall Patagonians, 

 no answer could be given beyond the suggestion that they may 

 have been specialised in their present habitat, where nevertheless 

 they seem to be obviously intruders. Now, however, one may 

 perhaps venture to look for their original home amongst the 

 Bororos of the region south of Goyaz, between the head-waters of 

 the Rios Parana and Paraguay. These Bororos, who had been 

 heard of by Martius, but whose very existence had been doubted, 

 have long been known to the Portuguese settlers, and have also 

 lately been interviewed by Ehrenreich, who found them to be a 

 very numerous and powerful nation (as in fact already stated by 

 Milliet de Saint-Adolphe 1 ), ranging over a territory as large as 

 Germany. Their physical characters, as described by this ob- 

 server, correspond closely with those of the Patagonians: "An 

 exceptionally tall race rivalling the Polynesians, Patagonians, and 

 Redskins ; by far the tallest Indians hitherto discovered within 

 the tropics, some being 6 ft. 4 in. high, although the tallest were 

 not measured; head very large and round (men 8i'2; women 

 77-4)"." With this should be compared the very large round old 

 Patagonian skull from the Rio Negro, measured by Rudolf Martin, 

 as described in the Quarterly Journal of Swiss Naturalists 3 . The 

 account reads like the description of some forerunner of a pre- 

 historic Bororo irruption into the Patagonian steppe lands. 



To the perplexing use of the term Puelche above referred to 

 is perhaps due the difference of opinion still prevailing on the 

 number of stock languages in this southern section of the Con- 

 tinent. D'Orbigny's emphatic statement 4 that the Puelches spoke 



] "Nacao de Indies poderosa...dominando sobre um vasto territorio etc.," 

 (Diccionario Gcographico do Brazil, 1863, I. p. 160). 

 - Urbewohner Brasiliens, 121, 125. 

 :5 Zurich, 1896, p. 496 sq. 

 4 ISHomnie Ainericain, II. p. 70. 



