276 TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 



as sucli 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 ! 



Captain Fitz Roy could never ascertain that the 

 Fuegians have any distinct belief in a future life. 

 The}^ sometimes bury their 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 fiiends. We have no reason to believe 

 that they perform any sort of religious worship ; 

 though perhaps the muttering of the old man be- 

 fore he distributed the puti-id blubber to his fam- 

 ished 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, thougli not, as I have said, in 

 the devil : I do not think that our Fuegians were 

 much more suj^erstitious 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 Fue- 

 gians on board. The nearest approach to a reli- 

 gious 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 Vv'as evidently a retributive pun- 

 ishment 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 



