428 ACCOUNT OP HUMAN REMAINS FROM PATAGONIA. 



the mummy races,) to a connexion witli wliom the Patagonian mummies would 

 point, were rather under middle size, and weakly, in comparison to the latter, 

 although inhabiting a fertile country, with a favorable climate. At the same 

 time, the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, separated from Patagonia only by the 

 narrow straits of Magellan, present an appearance of almost decrepitude. The 

 reconcilement of these apparent contradictions would be well worth the study 

 of ethnologists. 



The contact of these races with what is called civilization has not tended as 

 yet to exalt their sense of morality. Some years ago the attention of the 

 Chilian government was directed towards these territories. A German officer 

 of engineers, Bernhard Philippi, explored the region, and having, amongst 

 other things of commercial importance, discovered coal, the government deter- 

 mined on establishing there a penal colony. In 1851 the military commander, 

 Cambiazo, taking advantage of a revohxtion then raging in the country, amongst 

 other brutalities, committed the one of hanging some six or eight unfortunate 

 Indians, who had been guilty of no other crime than that of being in the colony 

 at the moment. Having quelled the revolution, the government sent Mr. 

 Philippi to organize the colony. He found the bodies of the murdered men 

 still hanging, and at once having buried them, commenced a series of negotia- 

 tions with the Patagonians tending to appease their fears and their anger. His 

 apparent success was such that trading was resumed, and he was invited by the 

 chiefs to visit the interior. Two years after he had started, it was ascertained 

 that both he and his secretary had been murdered a few days after their departure 

 from the colony, in retribution for the lives sacrificed by Cambiazo. 



Although unable to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent, in the first 

 instance, they must have still possessed the sense of right and wrong to a 

 certain extent, and their conscience made such coAvards of them that for several 

 years none approached the settlement, and for a long time they could not be- 

 lieve that retaliation would not be practiced on them. 



Although furnished with great pliysical powers, the Patagonians have never 

 been a warlike race; their collisions with the neighboring Indians, and their 

 intestine broils, never assuming anything of a general character. Of their me- 

 chanical skill the accompanying adze-shaped stone may convey an idea; their 

 weapons of offence are the rudest imaginable, the principal one being the 

 "bolas," of the Spaniards, or the "lakhi," of the Araueanians. 



Of the four skulls which I have the honor to present to the Institution, the 

 one marked No. 3 belonged to an Indian of the "Pampa,"the northeastern 

 frontier of Patagonia, who has been killed by the above-mentioned weapon. 

 The "lakhi" consists of two, or sometimes three round stones of the-»size of 

 a small orange, covered with raw hide, and connected by pieces of thong of 

 the same material. In war they are used of lead, and it is evident that the 

 blow, in the present case, has been given by a weapon of the latter description, 

 as the force necessary to fracture the skull by a stone would have caused a 

 much more extensive gap in the bone ; whereas the blow of the lead, being 

 conveyed Avith greater energy, Avoitld produce a more circumscribed wound. 

 The individual had been killed in an incursion of the Pampa Indians towards 

 the south, and the skull was procured by the surgeon of the colony. It is 

 difficult and dangerous to collect such remains, as the Indian will sooner forgive 

 you for killing his companion than for abstracting any part of a dead body. 1 

 plead this in excuse of the defective state in which the specimens are presented. 

 The skull, marked No. IV, was found about eighteen leagues (fifty-four miles) 

 from the Chilian settlement towards the northeast, and presents a striking diifer- 

 cnce from the former one. Neither does it resemble many others found in the 

 same region ; and the excessive flatness of the superior anterior portion, the great 

 breadth of the posterior inferior region, and the position of the foramen magnum, 

 would lead to the supposition that it belonged to an inhabitant of "Tierra del 



