54 Crime of the ''Alerts 



Neither stone slings, bows and arrows, nor bolas, are used by 

 the Channel Fuegians, so that altogether, with respect to hunting 

 appliances, they are in a more primitive state than any of the 

 southern tribes. 



The remains of the deceased, so far as wc have known, are 

 deposited in caves in out-of-the-way localities. During the 

 voyage of Sarmicnto, towards the latter end of the i6th century, 

 a cave containing human remains was found in a small island 

 called the " Roca Partida," or cleft rock ; and subsequently, when 

 the shipwrecked crew of the \Va^ci\ one of Commodore Anson's 

 ships, were wandering about the Gulf of Peiias, Mr. Wilson, the 

 surgeon, discovered near the seashore a large cave which con- 

 tained the skeletons of several human beings {i>Ue Byron's 

 narrative of the loss of the Wager, Burney's Voyages). During 

 the surveying cruise of H.M.S. i^assmi, in 1866-9, a diligent 

 search was made for such burial places, but without success ; 

 but, on the other hand, no signs were observed of any other 

 method of disposing of the dead, either by fire, as in the case 

 of .some of the southern tribes, or by covering the bodies with 

 branches of trees, as described by Fitzroy. However, during 

 our late survey of the Trinidad Channel, we found a small cave 

 containing portions of two skeletons in a limestone islet, near 

 Port Rosario, on the north side of Mad re de Dios Island ; anr! 

 this would seem to have been used as a burial-place, at some 

 very remote period. The remains have been deposited in the 

 British Museum. 



It has been stated by the late Admiral Fitzro}-, on the autho- 

 rity of Mr. Low, a sealing captain, that during times of great 

 .scarcity of food, these savages do not scruple to resort to canni- 

 balism, and that for this purpose tl ey select as victims the old 

 women of the party, killing them by .squeezing their throats, 

 while holding their heads over the smoke of a green wood fire. 

 Mr. Low's evidence on this point is so circumstantial, being 

 derived from a native interpreter who served on board his ship 



