230 



CHARLES DARWIN 



as such a death by the hands of their friends and relatives 

 must be, the fears of the old women, when hunger begins 

 to press, are more painful to think of; we are told that they 

 then often run away into the mountains, but that they are 

 pursued by the men and brought back to the slaughter-house 

 at their own firesides ! 



Captain Fitz Roy could never ascertain that the Fuegians 

 have any distinct belief in a future life. They sometimes 

 bury their dead in caves, and sometimes in the mountain 

 forests; we do not know what ceremonies they perform. 

 Jemmy Button would not eat land-birds, because " eat dead 

 men ": they are unwilling even to mention their dead friends, 

 We have no reason to believe that they perform any sort of 

 religious worship; though perhaps the muttering of the old 

 man before he distributed the putrid blubber to his famished 

 party, may be of this nature. Each family or tribe has a 

 wizard or conjuring doctor, whose office we could never 

 clearly ascertain. Jemmy believed in dreams, though not, as 

 I have said, in the devil: I do not think that our Fuegians 

 were much more superstitious than some of the sailors; for 

 an old quartermaster firmly believed that the successive 

 heavy gales, which we encountered off Cape Horn, were 

 caused by our having the Fuegians on board. The nearest 

 approach to a religious feeling which I heard of, was shown 

 by York Minster, who, when Mr. Bynoe shot some very 

 young ducklings as specimens, declared in the most solemn 

 manner, " Oh, Mr. Bynoe, much rain, snow, blow much." 

 This was evidently a retributive punishment for wasting 

 human food. In a wild and excited manner he also related, 

 that his brother, one day whilst returning to pick up some 

 dead birds which he had left on the coast, observed some 

 feathers blown by the wind. His brother said (York imi- 

 tating his manner), "What that?" and crawling onwards, 

 he peeped over the cliff, and saw "wild man" picking his 

 birds; he crawled a little nearer, and then hurled down a 

 great stone and killed him. York declared for a long time 

 afterwards storms raged, and much rain and snow fell. 

 As far as we could make out, he seemed to consider the 

 elements themselves as the avenging agents: it is evident ira 

 this case, how naturally, in a race a little more advanced 



