IN PATAGONIA AND FUEGIA 131 
more northerly Ona tribe of Tierra del Fuego. Their outfit 
of domestic appliances is largely symptomatic of this sea¬ 
faring existence. 
A Yaghan sling (Fig. 8, no. 5) was obtained by Spencer, 
consisting of a large, lozenge-shaped piece of otter-skin, 
folded, with the fur outside, so as to form a pocket, or 
‘cradle’, for the stone missile. To each of the upper angles 
of this is attached, by stitches, a plaited cord, about 26 in. 
long, terminating in a rough padded knob. One cord is very 
slightly longer than the other and has a larger terminal 
knob. This cord was held between the third and little 
fingers; the other cord was gripped between the thumb and 
index finger, so as to be easily released in discharging the 
stone. Slings were commonly, when ‘off-duty’, worn as 
fillets round the head, or, alternatively, round the neck. 
They were in common use among the ‘Canoe Indians’ 
(Yaghans and Alacalufs) fifty years ago, but are nowadays 
almost obsolete. 
Among the more striking specimens collected is a very 
large model of an equipped bark canoe, anan , some 7 ft. 
long (almost half the size of an actual canoe), of the type 
familiar from smaller models in museums; built of several 
large sheets of bark (usually of beech, Fagus betuloides ) 
stitched together with thin strips of baleen. I cannot 
describe the model in detail as it has gone to the Melbourne 
Museum. Bark canoes, formerly universally used by Yaghans 
and Alacalufs, have been gradually superseded by canoes 
built of planks, a type probably derived from the Chonos of 
the north-westerly area, and the old-time bark canoe is now 
very scarce, a fact which gives importance to accurate 
models. This large model had been on Bertrand Island for 
many years. 
For stripping large sheets of bark from beech trees for 
canoe-making, the Yaghans make incisions with shells or 
