52 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. g3 



Prof. Furlong's Hausli informaut was quite unlike the Shllk'nam in 

 physical appearance, being "short, thick-set, and about 5 ft. 4 or 5 

 in. in height" (k), but accordmg to Dr. Skottsberg (d, 615; c, 308) 

 this old man was a half breed Yahgan. Prof. Furlong writes (k) that 

 "a Haush could not make himself understood to an Ona or a Yahgan 

 by use of the Haush language." ' This, however, would not neces- 

 sarily be a proof of more than considerable dialectic difference be- 

 tween the two tongues. In this connection we may recall the Rev. 

 Mr. Bridges' remark cited above, that " the Western Onas could scarcely 

 understand the Eastern Onas" (h, Oct. 1, 1884, 223). 



Tlie evidence at hand, therefore, seems to justify the conclusion 

 that the Shilk'nam and Manekenkn are both fundamentally of the 

 same racial stock. What somatological differences exist arc prob- 

 ably due in great part to Yahgan influence. The cultural differences 

 are negligible but the linguistic are much more pronounced. Whether 

 these latter are the result of differentiation through long isolation, 

 or are to be accounted for on the theory that the Manekenkn represent 

 an earlier invasion from the mainland, can not be decided in the 

 present state of the evidence. 



Ona and Tehuelche Relations 



Anthropologists and explorers almost without exception have held 

 and hold the Onas to be near relatives of the southern Patagonian 

 aborigines. 



A. LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE 



As far as language is concerned practically all who have made 

 actual comparisons between the Onan and Teheulchean tongues have 

 concluded that they are akin. Two notable exceptions are Gen. 

 Mitre (i, 156), who ascribed the lexical resemblance between the two 

 languages to the presence of loan-words acquired by the Onas 

 through communication with the Tehuelches, and the late Prof. 

 Chamberlain, who expressed the opinion {a, 89) that "efi^orts to make 

 out the Onan to be a Tsonekan (Tehuelchean) dialect have not been 

 successful." Prof. Chamberlain was here, however, in all probability 

 basing his statement on Gen. Mitre's, whom he follows very closely 

 in both his articles dealing with Fuegian and Chonoan linguistics. 

 As for Gen. Mitre's theory, first it takes for granted what is probable 

 inde.cd, but by no means proven, that the Onas have been in direct 

 contact with the Tehuelches in comparatively recent times, and, 

 secondly, the proportion of such resemblances between the Ona and 

 Tehuelche tongues appears to be much too great to be explained on 

 the hypothesis of loan-words. In from 40 to 45 per cent of the cases 

 the Ona words are similar to the Tehuelche, and often identical. 



