176 BUEEAIT OF AMERICAN ETH^^OT.OGY [Bmx. f.?. 



tioned have denied the charge, often emphatically and with horror. 

 They will not even eat animals that are suspected of devouring human 

 flesh. 



There remain the Alacaluf . Capt. Low was told by the West Pata- 

 gonian channel boy Bob that when the natives are pressed by hunger 

 in winter the old women are killed and eaten in preference to the dogs, 

 for ''doggies catch otters; old women no" (Darwin, a, 1871 ed., 214; 

 cf. also Fitz-Roy, a, 189, 183). Admiral Fitz-Roy himself gathered 

 some gruesome details on the capture, smoking, suffocation, and 

 devouring of the old women and the eating of prisoners of war, from 

 his Fuegian proteges (King, 462; Fitz-Roy, a, 2, 183), including 

 Jemmy Button, the Yahgan boy (Fitz-Roy, a, 183). Later they 

 would not talk on the subject. 



The evidence, therefore, for Alacalufan cannibalism is from two 

 independent native sources, representing both the Channel and Strait 

 Alacaluf. Nevertheless certain considerations make its outright ac- 

 ceptance hazardous: (1) No white man has ever observed canni- 

 balistic feasts in Fuegia or any tangible evidence of such. (2) Vargas 

 Ponce, one of our best sources on the Alacaluf, denies from "pruebas 

 convincentes" the existence of anthropophagy among them (&, 29). 

 (3) Jemmy Button, one of Admiral Fitz-Roy 's informants, was him- 

 self a Yahgan, but, as we have seen, the Yahgans are not and in all 

 probability have not been cannibals; if Jemmy's charge be incorrect, 

 that of the other natives may well be so too. (4) The general cul- 

 ture of the Alacaluf is, so far as our evidence goes, so similar to that 

 of the Yahgans that there is an antecedent probability at least that 

 the former would have the same horror of eating human flesh that 

 the latter have. (5) Dr. Lovisato found (b, 101) no evidence of 

 former cannibalism in the middens of Elizabeth Island. (6) Canni- 

 balism is the exception rather than the rule among peoples as low in 

 general culture as the Fuegians. 



To sum up : The evidence against Yahgan and Ona anthropophagy 

 is fairly conclusive, while that for Alacalufan cannibalism is based on 

 the unsupported testimony of natives whose veracity under the cir- 

 cumstances is to say the least open to very serious question. 



DOMESTIC" MCIRAIJTV 



For details see Domestic Culture. 



SOCIAL REI-ATIONS 



The friendship sentiment exists but normally is not strongly marked ; 

 it is more noticeable between women. Kindness is common, but so 

 also are antipathies and suspicions, hatred and ill-will. Hospitality 

 is extended as a matter of course. Good turns are remembered, but 

 no external sign of gratitude is as a rule manifested; such would be 

 considered unbecoming. Truthfulness is none too higlily valued, 



