1S2 



SOUTHERN ABORIGINES. 



or portion of a tribe. It may consist of about six hundred 

 men and women, besides children. 



Beyond a range of high mountains to the southward of the 

 Yacana, is the tribe formerly called Key-uhue, now probably 

 the Tekeenica. These are the smallest, and apparently the most 

 wretched of the Fuegians. They inhabit the shores and neigh- 

 bourhood of the Beagle Channel. The number of adults in this 

 tribe may be about five hundred. (Note 1.) 



To the westward, between the western part of the Beagle 

 Channel and the Strait of Magalhaens, is a tribe now called 

 Alikhoolip (which may be the Poy-yus), whose numbers 

 amount perhaps to four hundred. 



About the central parts of Magalhaens Strait is a small and 

 very miserable horde, whose name I do not know. Their usual 

 exclamation is ' Pecheray V ' Pecheray !' whence Bougainville 

 and others called them the Pecherais. For want of a more 

 correct term I shall here use the same word. The number of 

 adults among them is about two hundred. 



Near Otway and Skyring waters is a tribe, or fraction of 

 a tribe, whose name I could not learn ; for the present I 

 shall call them ' HuemuF — because they have many skins of a 

 kind of roebuck, which is said to be the animal described by 

 Molina as the ' HuemuP *. Their number may be one hundred, 

 or thereabouts. I am inclined to think that these Huemul 

 Indians are a branch of the Yacana people, whom Falkner 

 describes as living on both sides of the Strait. 



On the wes'tern coast of Patagonia, between the Strait of Ma- 

 galhaens and the Chonos Archipelago, there is now but one 

 tribe, in which there are not above four hundred grown people. 



Each of the tribes here specified speaks a language differing 

 from that of any other, though, as I believe, not radically dif- 

 ferent from the aboriginal Chilian. Some words are common to 

 two or more tribes ; as may be seen by reference to the frag- 

 ment of a vocabulary in the Appendix ; and differences must 

 increase because neighbouring tribes are seldom at peace. 



The numbers above stated are mere estimations. The diffi- 

 * See Note 2, at the end of this chapter. 



