220 BUKEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bdll. 63 



The above data go to show that the Magellanic archipelagos have 

 been inhabited for a very long period, but it is impossible to assign 

 even an approximate number of centuries in the present state of our 

 knowledge. 



Tlie theory is occasionally advanced that the Onas, being, like their 

 cousins the Tehuelches, a distinctly nonseafaring people, must have 

 reached their present habitat at a time when Tierra del Fuego Island 

 was stiU united to the mainland (Outes, d, 132 ; Dabbene, 6, 277-278), 

 a supposition seemingly corroborated by the native Ona tradition 

 that they came by land from Patagonia (Beauvoir, h, 178, 201-202). 

 It is doubtful, however, how much reliance can be put on such a tra- 

 dition, while as for the present absence of the canoe from Ona culture 

 we have given evidence (cf. supra, under Navigation, Onas) that it 

 is quite possible that the Onas may have formerly made occasional 

 use, as they now do, of some kind of water craft. Or, again, they 

 may have been ferried across the Strait of Magellan by Canoe Indians. 



C. Have the Fuegians degenerated culturally since their advent to 

 their present habitat ? Their archeological remains, as we have seen, 

 give no indications of such a retrogression. The Elizabeth Island 

 middens, the only ones of proven antiquity that have been investi- 

 gated, show, if anything, that the earlier Fuegians were even less 

 advanced than their modern descendants. 



During the last three or four centuries Fuegian culture has remained 

 practically stagnant, as is apparent from a comparison of the early 

 narratives like those of Ladrillero, Goicueta, the missionaries to the 

 Chonos, Drake, van Noort and de Weert, L'Hermite, Narbrough, La 

 Guilbaudiere, de Labat, and Du Plessis, with the accounts of mod- 

 ern explorers. 



Neither archeology, therefore, nor the history of Magellanic explora- 

 tion has thusfarshown any concrete evidence of cultural degeneration 

 among the Canoe Indians since their advent to their present habitat. 



Relations 



The intertribal relations of the Chonos and three Fuegian tribes, 

 as well as the relations of the Onas and Tehuelches, have been treated 

 at sufficient length in the Introduction to the present work. 



The further relations of the Fuegians and Chonos ( 1) to the Arau- 

 canians; (2) to primitive South American peoples, ancient and 

 modern; (3) to the American race in general; and (4) to some of the 

 peoples of very low culture in Indo-Oceanica and other parts of the 

 world, may here be touched upon or outlined. 



(1) RELATIONS TO THE ARAUCANIANS 



Opinions vary greatly. They may be roughly grouped as foUows: 

 (a) More or less in favor of some relationship between the Chonos, or 



