cooFEuJ BIBLIOGRAPHY OF TRIBES OF TIERRA DEL FUEGO 25 



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excepting names for things which could be shown to them and which 

 they had in their own country" (Fitz-Roy, a, 188). Of Admiral 

 Fitz-Roy's list of more than 200 Tekeenica words, Dr. Hyades found 

 50 exact, 30 more or less inexact, and 120 entirely wrong (Hyades, 

 c[, 262, 270). It is to be expected then that a good proportion of his 

 Alacalufan words, too, may be wrong. 



Dr. Hyades published his own Alacalufan material ''sous les plus 

 expresses reserves, et comme pierre d'attente en quelque sorte" 

 {ci, 279). Valuable though his longer list is, it is certainly not as 

 dependable as his Yahgan material, upon which he bestowed much 

 more care and labor, interrogating and reinterrogating the 120 to 130 

 Yahgan natives who visited Orange Bay during the expedition's 

 12-month sojourn, and revising the words with the assistance of the 

 English missionaries. "Pour la langue des Alakalouf, nous allons 

 presenter ... la comparaison du vocabulaire de Fitz-Roy avec les 

 mots que nous avons entendu prononcer par une femme alakalouf, 

 vivant a la baie Orange. Nous 1' avons soignee la pendant longtemps 

 pour une arthrite du coude. EUe affirmait qu'elle se rappelait bieii 

 la langue de son pays natal, et les Fuegiens de la baie Orange parais- 

 saient en etre persuades" {g, 272). His statement, coupled with the 

 fact that he gives the Alacalufan equivalents only for those words in 

 the main which Admiral Fitz-Roy had already published, gives one 

 the impression that his chief concern was to obtain correct pronun- 

 ciation and what few synonyms he could incidentally gather. He 

 did not identify or revise his vocabulary with the aid of other Ala- 

 caluf, and the missionaries at the time did not give him any assist- 

 ance (g, 13). His informant, moreover, as noted above, had in all 

 probability been away from all her people, except her sister, for at 

 least 13 or 14 years. 



Taking into account, therefore, the circumstances under which the 

 H and Fi lists were gathered, we are justified in assuming that they 

 contain a considerable percentage of errors. 



Bo and Be were taken under more favorable conditions. The 

 Salesians have been in close contact with the Alacaluf for over 20 

 years, and most of the natives speak a little Spanish, while Father 

 Borgatello miderstands a little Alacaluf and Brother Xikora, who 

 assisted him, speaks the language fairly well, although not fluently 

 (Cojazzi, private communication). 



Dr. Skottsberg's informant, Emilia, spoke Spanish, the medium of 

 communication, rather brokenly, but well enough for his purpose. 

 Moreover, he took pains to verify his words through other natives. 

 Dr. Fenton had learned his few words some years previously, prob- 

 ably with Spanish as the medium of communication^ but apparently 

 had not preserved a written record of them, as he dictated them to 

 Dr. Hyades from memory (Hyades, q, 279). They were verified 

 by Cyrille, a 9-year-old boy living at Punta Arenas. 



