cooi'Eu] BIBLIOGRAPHY OF TRIBES OF TIERRA DEL FUEGO 197 



short pieces of wood, which were thrust in transversely between the 

 two sides, hke the boats children make of a bean shell." Such a de- 

 scription might apply equally well to the three-piece bark canoe (cf. 

 Fitz-Roy, a, 140). All the scores of detailed accounts of the Fuegian 

 canoe describe it as built up of three or more pieces. 



Sewed-harJc canoe. — Until about a generation ago the Yahgans used 

 exclusively the bark canoe, and in earlier times it alone was used over 

 the whole of the present Alacalufan territor}^ as far up the coast as 

 the Gulf of Pen as. 



The LadriUero and Cortes Hojea expedition in 1557-58 found only 

 the bark canoe in the territory from the northern end of Fallos Chan- 

 nel to the western end of the Strait of Magellan, and also in the 

 Ultima Speranza district (Goicueta, 484, 519; Ladrillero, 465, 473, 

 484, 490). None of the many early Magellanic explorers prior to the 

 voyage of Byron in 1765 reported finding any but the bark canoe in 

 the Strait (cf. especially La Guilbaudiere, 4-5, 19; see also 28). 



The plank boat, m migrating down the west Patagonian coast, 

 effectually but never entirely displaced the bark canoe, for Mr. Bynoe 

 found the bark canoe in Obstruction Sound, and one as far north as 

 Messier Channel (Fitz-Roy, a, 199; cf. also Child, 245, for Smyth 

 Channel), while Machado (An. liidr., xiv, 85) 60 years earlier, in 

 1768, found at Port Tangao, probably on Tangbac Island, at the 

 southern end of Moraleda Channel, that is, in Chonoan territory, con- 

 siderably north of Taitao Peninsula, a party of marooned natives 

 engaged in making a bark canoe. 



Throughout the whole territory where found, the bark canoes were 

 constructed in the same way— of three or more pieces sewed together, 

 with thwarts and ribs and with pointed ends. L'Hermite describes 

 (1643 ed., 42) the Yahgan canoes of Nassau Bay as like "Venetian 

 gondolas"; Drake's chronicler, Fletcher (Hyades, q, 3), compares 

 those seen at Elizabeth Island to crescents; Goicueta (484) speaks of 

 those observed at the northern end of Fallos (Channel as "como luna 

 de cuatro dias, con unas puntas elevadas" and made of bark "tan 

 gRiesa como un dedo" (519). Of the same shape are the canoes 

 illustrated in de Weert, and L'Hermite, opp. p. 40. 



Bark of the beech (Fagus betulo'ides) was usually employed. In cut- 

 ting the bark the natives used a shell, bone, or flint knife, and held 

 themselves to the tree trunks with strong rawliide thongs (Th. 

 Bridges, j, 314; Hyades, q, 350; Dabbene, h, 181). Many detailed 

 descriptions of the bark canoe are available; see especially Hyades, 

 q, 304-306, 350-352, 414; Vargas Ponce, a, 343-346; Dabbene, h, 

 180-181. An excellent account of canoe making is given in Despard, 

 h, 679-680. 



The Alacaluf often made bark canoes of much larger dimensions 

 than those in use among the Yahgans. The latter ones were, as a rule. 



