CHAP. a.] RELIGION OF THE FUEGIANS. l$5 



these men one morning set out, and the other Indians explained to him, 

 that they were going a four days' journey for food ; on their return, 

 Low went to meet them, and he found them excessively tired, each 

 man carrying a great square piece of putrid whales' blubber with a hole 

 in the middle, through which they put their heads, like the Gauchos do 

 through their ponchos or cloaks. As soon as the blubber was brought 

 into a wigwam, an old man cut off thin slices, and muttering over them, 

 broiled them for a minute, and distributed them to the famished party, 

 who during this time preserved a profound silence. Mr. Low believes 

 that whenever a whale is cast on shore, the natives bury large pieces of 

 it in the sand as a resource in time of famine ; and a native boy, 

 whom he had on board, once found a stock thus buried. The different 

 tribes when at war are cannibals. From the concurrent, but quite 

 independent evidence of the boy taken by Mr. Low, and of Jemmy 

 Button, it is certainly true, that when pressed iu winter by hunger, 

 they kill and devour their old women before they kill their dogs ; the 

 boy, being asked by Mr. Low why they did this, answered, " Doggies 

 catch otters, old women no." This boy described the manner in which 

 they are killed by being held over smoke and thus choked ; he 

 imitated their screams as a joke, and described the parts of their 

 bodies which are considered best to eat. Horrid as such a death by 

 the hands of their friends and relatives must be, the fears of the old 

 women, when hunger begins to press, are more painful to think of ; we 

 were told that they then often run away into the mountains, but that 

 they are pursued by the men, and brought back to the slaughter-house 

 at their own firesides 1 



Captain Fitz Roy could never ascertain that the Fuegians have any 

 distinct belief in a future life. They sometimes bury 'heir dead in 

 caves, and sometimes in the mountain forests ; we do not know what 

 ceremonies they perform. Jemmy Button would not eat land-birds, 

 because " eat dead men : " they are unwilling even to mention their 

 dead friends. We have no reason to believe that they perform any 

 sort of religious worship ; though perhaps the muttering of the old man 

 before he distributed the putrid blubber to his famished party, may be 

 of this nature. Each family or tribe has a wizard or conjuring doctor, 

 whose office we could never clearly ascertain. Jemmy believed in 

 dreams, though not, as I have said, in the devil : I do not think that our 

 Fuegians were much more superstitious than some of the sailors ; for 

 an old quarter-master firmly believed that the successive heavy gales, 

 which we encountered off Cape Horn, were caused by our having the 

 Fuegians on board. The nearest approach to a religious feeling which 

 I heard of, was shown by York Minster, who, when Mr. Bynoe shot 

 some very young ducklings as specimens, declared in the most solemn 

 manner, " Oh, Mr. Bynoe, much rain, snow, blow much." This was 

 evidently a retributive punishment for wasting human food. In a wild 

 and excited manner he also related, that his brother, one day whilst 

 returning to pick up some dead birds which he had left on the coast, 

 observed some feathers blown by the wind. His brother said CYork 

 imitating his manner), "What that?" and crawling onwards, he peeped 



