196 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 63 



rctiiriicd from a hiintiiig expedition on Navarin Island (verbal com- 

 munication).' The Rev. Mr. Bridges found the Dawson Islanders as 

 much Onan as Alacalufan {b, Feb. 1, 1886, 33; of. also 1c, 234). Old 

 residents of Punta Arenas assured Dr. Segers that many Indians 

 recalled how, 20 je&Ts previously, they used to cross the Strait from 

 Patagonia to Tierra del Fuego (63). Mr. Marsh states, apparently 

 on the authority of the English missionaries, that the Onas rarely 

 use canoes (a, 109). 



In view of the preceding statements, the assertion frequently made, 

 that the Onas never use or have used canoes, appears to bo too sweep- 

 mg. They may possibly have reached their present habitat by 

 water. It is even possible, too, that the "tall" natives encountered 

 in canoes by the Loaysa and de Weert expeditions may have been 

 Onas. 



Rafts and balsas. — Neither rafts nor balsas have ever been reported 

 by any of the scores of first-hand observers of Fuegian and Chonoan 

 culture. Ci. Herbertson in Author Bibhography. 



STcin boats. — Two recent visitoi-s to Fuegia report seeing in the 

 same locality, the Magdalen Channel district, a canoe made of bark 

 and skuis stretched on a wattle framework (Mossman, 365-366; Con- 

 way, 194), while Dr. Essendorfer described (60-61) one seen near 

 Cape Froward as made of " zusammengeniihten Hauten, mit der 

 unbehaarten Seite nach aussen." This type of boat, if the reports be 

 correct, is very imusual in Fuegia. 



Dugouts. — In recent years, especially since the last decade of the 

 last century, the dugout of beechwood has largely superseded the 

 Alacalufan plank boat (Skottsberg, d, 581; b, 270; c, 100; Barclay, a, 

 66; Cojazzi, 122) and the Yahgan bark canoe almost entirely (Dab- 

 bene, b, 181; Furlong, b, 126). In 1882-83 the French expedition 

 encountered only one Yahgan dugout during a whole year's residence 

 (Mission Terre de Feu, 275). 



The only earlier mention of the (higout as being in use among the 

 Fuegians or Chonos is, as far as the present writer has noted. Father 

 Rosales' statement, not based on personal observation, that dugouts 

 made with fire and shells were used by the natives who lived toward 

 the Strait of Magellan (a, vol. i, 173-174). 



One-piece baric canoe. — Several writers on Fuegian culture state 

 that the natives sometimes use one-piece bark canoes (Colini, 162; 

 J. G. Wood, II, 520, Amer. ed., ii, 1168; Hale, 94; Lucy-Fossarieu, 

 169-170). All these statements hark back to a passage in Commo- 

 dore Byron's narrative in Hawkesworth (i, 79). An officer who had 

 been ashore reported seeing canoes which were " nothing more than 

 the bark of large trees, tied together at the ends, and kept open by 



' According to Jemmy Button, the Yahgan boy, the Onas used to cross Beagle Channel in stolen Yahgan 

 canoes in order to raid the Navarin Island natives (Pitz-K()>-, a, 205-206, 325-326). Mr. Despard, however, 

 held (b, 717) that the Onas did not raid beyond the north shore of Beagle Channel. 



