CAPE HORN ABORIGINES.
This is the story in part of one of the most interesting and most
unfortunate tribes of Indians known in the history of American
aborigines--interesting because of their remarkable qualities of mind
and body, and unfortunate because they have been almost exterminated by
changes in their habits, wrought by Christian missionaries. It begins
with what was said of them and their country by the early explorers, and
it ends where the missionaries began what was intended to be the work of
civilizing them. It tells of the race as God made it. What the white man
did for it will be told later.
The Cape Horn Archipelago, as the islands south of the Straits of
Magellan may be called, contained when discovered, and still maintains,
three distinct tribes of Indians. One tribe occupied the island of
Tierra del Fuego to the north and east of the coast range of mountains,
of which Mts. Darwin and Sarmiento are the chief peaks. It was a land
tribe; that is, they rarely if ever built canoes, and they subsisted
almost entirely on such products as the land afforded. Another race
occupied the islands to the west of Cockburn Channel. They were always,
so to speak, a race of sailors; they built canoes, cruised about their
region as fancy or the prevalence of food dictated, and were very little
dependent on land beasts for food.
Last of all, we come to the tribe that lived and now exists among the
islands lying south of Tierra del Fuego and along the very narrow south
beach of that great island itself--a tribe that might well be called the
Antarctic Highlanders, since they live further south than any other
known people--and the land they occupy is but a succession of mountain
peaks. These people are known as the Yahgans.
The known history of the Yahgans begins in the stories told by the early
navigators of the region--a brief matter--merely the record of what the
early navigators saw of them--but it is worth printing in part here
because it is interesting, and because the reading of the mistakes made
by the early travellers will help to impress on the memory the
peculiarities of this remarkable tribe.
Darwin, the naturalist, under date of December 25, 1832, wrote of the
Yahgans:
While going one day on shore near Wollaston Island, we pulled
alongside a canoe with six Fuegians. These were the most abject and
miserable creatures I anywhere beheld. On the east coast the
natives, as we have seen, have guanaco cloaks, and on the west they
possess sealskins. Among these central tribes the men generally
have an otter skin, or some small scrap, about as large as a pocket
handkerchief, which is barely sufficient to cover their backs as
low down as their loins. It is laced across the breast by strings,
and according as the wind blows it is shifted from side to side.
But these Fuegians in the canoe were quite naked, and even one
full-grown woman was absolutely so. It was raining heavily, and the
fresh water together with the spray trickled down her body. In
another harbor not far distant, a woman who was suckling a recently
born child came one day alongside the vessel and remained there out
of mere curiosity while the sleet fell and thawed on her naked
bosom and on the skin of her naked baby! These poor wretches were
stunted in their growth, their hideous faces bedaubed with white
paint, their skins filthy and greasy, their hair entangled, their
voices discordant, and their gestures violent. At night five or six
human beings, naked and scarcely protected from the wind and rain
of this tempestuous climate, sleep on the wet ground coiled up like
animals. Viewing such men one can hardly make oneself believe that
they are fellow-creatures and inhabitants of the same world....
There is no reason to believe that the Fuegians decrease in number.
[Illustration: YAHGANS AT HOME.]
Quotations might be multiplied but two or three brief ones relating to
the land in which the Yahgans lived will suffice: King says that "the
vegetation is magnificent in some places, and under the shelter of the
great forests some plants are found that would be considered delicate in
England." Captain Cook agrees with this, and describes the wild celery
as among the delicate vegetable productions, but he concludes that "it
is the most savage country I have seen. There is no place in the world
which offers such desolate landscapes." To this may be added the
testimony of Admiral Anson, who said emphatically that it was "the most
horrible country which it was possible to conceive."
On the whole, it appears from reading the stories of these early
navigators that the land of the Yahgans, while lacking the eternal ice
of the Eskimo land, was bad enough, and in the matter of storms it was
worse even than the region of Baffin's Bay. As for the difference in the
people, it is apparent that the Yahgans were believed to be far more
wretched than the people of the North, because the Eskimos were clothed
in the warmest of furs and lived in huts, which, if made of ice and
snow, were still perfect shelters from the furies of the storms, while
the Yahgans went naked and often slept unsheltered from the snow and the
freezing sleet that fell in every month of the year.
The islands on which are found the homes of the Yahgan Indians are
almost without exception mountains that rise from the depths of the
Southern Sea. As one sails among them the idea that here is a mountain
chain that at some time long past was suddenly submerged in the sea is
irresistible. For miles and leagues one may coast along without finding
a beach wide enough to furnish a foothold, not to mention a place for
hauling up a yawl. That the mountain is as precipitous below the water
as it is above is easily proved, for soundings with the deep-sea lead
line often give 60 to 100 fathoms within 100 feet of the shore line.
Rising to the height of 1500 to 2000 feet, these precipitous mountain
peaks are lacking in nothing to make them grand and impressive. That
they seemed desolate to the early navigators none need doubt, however,
for the old-time sailors had a ship wretchedly unfit for such stormy
seas, and he was ill-clad, half-fed, and homesick. No mountains seen
through riffs in storm clouds and between marching columns of freezing
rain could seem pleasant to them.
But wherever there is shelter from the prevailing gales a narrow beach
is found commonly. Above this grows a forest of trees, of which the
greater number are the antarctic beech, and nearly all the rest are
species of magnolia. Some grow to a diameter of two feet and a height of
fifty. Nearly all of the trees are green the year round, and the
magnolias are of a particularly bright and beautiful green.
As one climbs the mountains the trees are seen to be of smaller and
smaller sizes until at from 1000 to 1500 feet above the sea mosses take
the place of trees. Above the mosses come barren rocks and eternal
snows. In many parts of Beagle Channel, and especially at the east end,
there are fairly level spaces bordering the water, with foot-hills that
are rolling instead of craggy. Even at the foot of Mount Misery, on the
east end of Navarin Island, a mountain that got its name from the
severity of the gales that come from its gulches, the scenery is
anything but desolate and horrible. Indeed, natural grassy meadows and
green groves so alternate with park-like beauty over the undulating
ground, that one scarcely can resist the idea that all those open spaces
in the woodland are the work of man. The eye involuntarily seeks for
farm-house and barn, while the sight of the red-haired guanaco makes the
scene all the more pastoral, for the wild beasts seem in that picture
very like domestic animals.
My own view of the picture was under peculiarly favorable circumstances,
for, although in the month of May, which corresponds to the November of
the North, the sun was bright and warm, the water sparkled, and a breeze
sweet and gentle just stirred the grass on the lawns and lifted the
green-leaved boughs of the trees. Seen on another day, when whirling
snow-laden squalls came down from the mountain to rip open the sea and
hurl its foam five hundred feet into the air, the picture would have had
a different aspect, but no landscape which contains green meadows and
green trees the year round can be called "desolate."
As to the meteorological condition among the islands the experience of
the missionaries there during twenty odd years has cleared away many
myths. Some of Captain Cook's men nearly froze to death in the land of
the Yahgans, but it is a fact that even the confined waters (salt) do
not freeze over often or remain frozen for any long time, while a
prolonged storm, during which the thermometer ranged from 10 deg. to 15 deg.
Fahrenheit, is mentioned in the missionary records as an unusually cold
spell. At the worst, the thermometer at Ushuaia has not gone lower than
12 deg. below zero, Fahrenheit, and Ushuaia is about the coldest spot in the
region, because it stands under lofty, glazier-covered mountains that
shut out the rays of the sun for nineteen hours out of the twenty-four
during the short days of winter.
One white man at Ushuaia told me that it was a climate in which winter
and summer alternated every week, and that describes the matter fairly
well. That it is better than people elsewhere suppose may be inferred by
the fact that the white men now there, while admitting the frequent
recurrence of boisterous storms, invariably said it was "the healthiest
climate in the world," and a few said they liked it better than any
other.
Having considered the Yahgans' country and its climate, we now come to
their homes and home life. Of the Yahgans as architects and as tailors,
I am bound to say that they have been well described by the old-time
explorers. The hut was a structure made of poles and a thatch of brush
and grass that was of about the shape of a Yankee haycock, and only a
little larger. It was open on the lee side, the thatching, such as it
was, covering two thirds of the circumference to windward.
The fire was built just within the door or opening, and the inhabitants
sat on grass or moss that partly covered the earth floor. It was
sometimes customary, where the Indians expected to live for some time in
one place, to scoop out the earth of the bottom of the wigwam and heap
it up against the brush wall, thus making a saucer-shaped cavity for the
floor, the brim of which rose high enough to serve somewhat as a wind
break. Moreover, the limpet and other shells gathered by the squaws were
commonly piled to windward of the hut. But even then, if judged by any
white man's standard, the Yahgan house was as bad as any in the world.
So, too, of his dress. He wore a single guanaco or sealskin across his
shoulders, holding it in place by thongs that crossed his breast. This
was the best he wore. They were often stark naked, save for a breach
clout, and the children were always so. The traveller who visits Hermite
Island, in the immediate vicinity of Cape Horn, will find them so at
this day. Living thus, "shelterless and naked in a land of fierce and
freezing storms," one need not wonder that even scientific observers
believed the Yahgan "the most miserable specimen of humanity to be found
on earth."
And yet all who thought him either physically or mentally uncomfortable
when in his natural state were entirely wrong. On the contrary, he was
about the healthiest and happiest savage that ever smashed the head of
an egotistical, meddlesome white man.
The Yahgan was built for the climate where he was found. He was in one
respect like the whale that lived in the waters about him. He had a coat
of fat under his skin that was very much better for him than the best of
flannels and blankets. Besides, he had a custom that at once protected
him from the cold and rendered him offensive to his white discoverers.
He greased himself all over frequently with any oil at his command, and
that is a custom worth remembering by people who may be cast away or
lost in cold climates. Had the early explorers imitated instead of
despised the Yahgan, they would have had fewer tales of suffering to
tell. In these later years, sporting men of the United States have
learned that when about to enter long-distance swimming matches they can
endure the cooling effects of a race through the water much better if
they coat themselves thickly with some such grease as vaseline. The
Yahgan used whale oil as we use vaseline. The explorers spoke of his
"filthy greasy skin," but the scientific sporting man of New York now
imitates the Yahgan, even though vaseline gathers during a swim any
flotsam that comes handy by. The Yahgan was "shelterless and naked in a
land of fierce and freezing storms," but he did not freeze; he did not
even shiver in ordinary Cape Horn weather.
However, one can understand why the explorers did not perceive the real
condition of the Yahgan. They were cold in spite of thick flannels, and
it was but natural that they should judge others by themselves.
But one cannot so easily understand how the explorers fell into such
errors as they did about the ingenuity and the mechanical skill of the
native. The results of Yahgan handicraft were everywhere visible. He
could not make either a good house or a broadcloth suit. In his hands a
white man's coat was ripped to pieces and the strips used for
decorations. But there were his canoes and his weapons--especially his
canoes. The Yahgan boats are mentioned slightingly, if at all, by nearly
every traveller who has visited the region.
"The boats are unwieldy and logy, and the Indians seem to have no knack
of propelling them at any sort of speed," says a latter-day writer, who
saw a canoe of the kind in the Straits of Magellan. This was the
writer's judgment in the matter. But along with his judgment he gave
the dimensions of the boat. It was "about twenty-five feet long, four
feet wide, and three feet deep, with comparatively sharp ends." The
facts as I saw them are so, save that the ends seemed to me to be
extremely sharp.
Now let any civilized canoe expert imagine a boat of those proportions
with lines in an exact arc of a circle, and then let him say whether he
knows of any superior model among either civilized or savage nations--a
model better adapted for combined speed, safety, and capacity than this.
My own experience with Indian canoes includes the kayaks and oomiaks of
the Eskimos in Greenland, the dugouts of old Providence Island in the
Caribbean Sea, and the bongos of the Bay of Panama, but I am bound to
say that the most graceful canoe, as well as the strongest, I ever saw
was made by the Yahgan.
However, one fact about these canoes will convince any one who knows
what Cape Horn storms are that the Yahgan canoe is of a remarkable
model. The Yahgans used them in navigating the waters of the Cape Horn
Archipelago. Further than that, both the Rev. Thomas Bridges and the
Rev. John Lawrence, who for twenty years have been familiar with the
Yahgans, told me that they never heard of a Yahgan being upset in his
canoe until in these later years, when the possession of axes and the
teachings of the missionaries led the Indians to substitute dugouts of
an entirely different model for the canoes they had made in the old
days.
Judged only by his house and his clothing, the Yahgan was of a lower
grade of intelligence, or at least was worse off, than many brutes.
Judged by his canoe, he was a naval architect who produced a model to
which the designers of yachts in the United States and England are in
these days of "spoon" bows approaching, but have not yet equalled.
When the Yahgan would build a canoe he stripped wide pieces of bark from
the tallest and smoothest tree trunks he could find, using shell axes,
in the old days, to cut the trees. The bark was stripped from the trunk
with a wooden tool, something like a chisel, and of the very shape found
most advantageous by the white men who, in Pennsylvania and the
Adirondacks, supply hemlock bark to the tanneries. Having his bark off
the tree, the Yahgan cut the strips into such shape that when sewed
together they would form a canoe with a midship section, say four feet
wide by three deep, that was almost the arc of a circle. From this
section the model tapered away almost on the arc of another circle. It
had a sheer at once pleasing to the eye and well adapted to ride the
most tempestuous seas in the world.
To brace this bark sheathing the Yahgan made ribs of split saplings that
looked like hickory barrel hoops--ribs at once strong and light--while
the rails and beams were made of round wood. The bark strips were sewed
together with whalebone taken from whales stranded on the beach. The
ribs, rails, and beams were lashed in place by sinew, usually guanaco
sinew, for that curious animal is found on several islands of the Yahgan
region.
Into the bottom of this canoe the Yahgan put an inverted sod perhaps two
by three feet large, and on this his squaw built a small fire for
warmth. Forward and aft of the fire were put little layers of brush and
grass. The man squatted on the grass forward of the fire, and his
favorite squaw, if he had more than one, was just aft of it, the terms
forward and aft being used to indicate only the direction in which the
canoe travelled, for both ends were alike. The other squaws and the
children were distributed further from the fire. A squaw with an infant
would keep it in her lap. The squaws paddled, the men used the weapons.
But one may doubt whether the Yahgan canoe shows greater ingenuity than
Yahgan weapons and implements for obtaining food do. Mention has been
made of the shell axe. It was made of a five-inch clam shell, or one
larger. A rounded stone was lashed with sinew to the hinge side of the
shell to give weight and make a good hand hold. Then the opposite side
was ground to a cutting edge by rubbing away the softer inner or convex
surface on a smooth rock. Yahgan chips made with this tool were small,
but to see the rapidity with which an old Yahgan makes the blows, or
better still, to see the wavy surface of a strip of wood dressed with a
shell axe--a paddle, for instance--is a matter of interest almost worth
a journey to the region. With this tool the Yahgan felled trees, or
fashioned his harpoon, or stripped the blubber from a stranded whale, or
trimmed his o'er long bangs, as occasion required.
When compared with the stone axes used by aborigines who knew not iron,
this shell axe is a striking illustration of noteworthy differences
between the Yahgan and the other tribes. The shell axe was frail, but
keen-edged. It required a quick but delicate hand to manipulate it. The
stone axe was blunt and heavy. Impelled by a rude hand, it smashed its
way through whatever opposed its progress. With the shell axe in hand,
we begin to perceive somewhat of the mental habits and character of the
Yahgan Indian--to see, at least, that he preferred to accomplish
certain ends by delicate means rather than by sheer brute strength.
Then there were his harpoons. I have one of which the head, made from a
whale rib, is twenty-five and one quarter inches long. To make a diagram
of it let the reader place a dot on a sheet of paper to represent the
point, and then draw from this dot two straight lines that shall diverge
from each other only one inch and three quarters when twenty-one inches
long. That will give an idea of the beautiful taper of the weapon. It
has a single barb, at once deep and strong. It is secured to the shaft
in such a way that when a seal was struck the harpoon head dropped from
its place in the shaft, or handle, after which the handle was towed
broadside on through the water by the wounded beast. Of course, towing
the harpoon shaft in this fashion impeded the animal's flight more than
towing it end on would do.
Another harpoon that I have is twenty-one inches long, and but one inch
wide and a half inch thick at the base, but instead of one heavy barb
near the base it has a series of twenty-six small ones along one side.
These barbs hook back like shark's teeth, and are about as keen-pointed.
Nothing of better shape to hold fast could be devised by a fish-hook
maker. Indeed, the turtle hunters of the West Indies, who have a steel
harpoon of a similar shape, do not make as well-formed barbs. The
harpoon of one barb is for seals, otters, and small whales (large whales
were never attacked unless stranded), while the other form was for the
various kinds of birds found in the region.
For fish spears the Yahgan lashed two or three of the bird harpoon heads
to a shaft in such a manner that the points were spread out; the harpoon
heads formed a V or a tripod, as the case might be, and the barbs were
all on the inside. The fish were speared at night by the light of a
torch. By having two or more of the harpoon heads on the shaft the
chances of hitting the dimly seen fish were of course increased, and,
moreover, a fish caught between two of the harpoon heads and impaled by
a third, was held no matter how it struggled or what its strength.
Nor were the spear and harpoon handles merely saplings cut in the
forest. The Yahgan used a perfectly round handle for one harpoon and a
six-square handle for the other, and both were worked from solid wood
with his wonderful shell axe. I speak now, of course, of the original
native weapon, and not of what the modern Yahgan buys of white traders.
If any reader owns one of the old specimens of Indian workmanship let
him keep it with great care, for the workmen who could make them are
dead and their art is lost forever.
Less showy but equally remarkable were the peculiar wooden chisels with
which the squaws stripped limpets from rocks six feet under water and
brought them to the surface, although they were as heavy and as ready to
sink as stones.
For gathering shell-fish the squaws made baskets of rushes. These
baskets were of the shape of the plain earthen cooking jars found in the
old ruins and cave dwellings of New Mexico and Arizona.
For a long-range weapon the Yahgan used the sling. He saw the Ona
Indians with their bows and arrows. The Onas also used the bolas, which
are the favorite weapons of the Patagonian Indians. With the Ona Indians
the bow and the bolas were used with great success in killing the
fleet-footed guanaco. Now the Yahgan, as said, found the guanaco in his
own proper country as well as when he went visiting the Onas on the
borderland, and he must have fully appreciated all that the Onas could
do with their bolas and bows. Some of the Yahgans even learned to use
these Ona weapons, but they never adopted them. The reason is not far to
seek. The Yahgan sling had a much greater range. The missionaries tell
about Yahgans killing birds afloat at a distance of two hundred yards.
To hit any wild fowl at that distance with a rifle would be called right
good shooting. The guanaco was knocked down and stunned by heavy round
pebbles at ranges up to one hundred yards.
Why, then, did not the Ona adopt the sling? The answer is an interesting
one for the student of anthropology. The home of the Ona was on the
prairies of Tierra del Fuego, where round pebbles are not to be found,
but material for bows and arrows is abundant. The Ona could not burden
himself with pebbles for a sling when journeying across these prairies.
On the other hand, the Yahgan lived on the beaches, where rounded
pebbles were forever at hand, and when he travelled it was not afoot, as
the Ona did, but in a first-class canoe, where he could carry as many
pebbles as he wanted.
The Yahgan sling was made of a piece of raw hide, to which were attached
strings of braided sinew that always ended in fancifully wrought knots.
The Yahgans did not fish with hooks, because they could catch more fish
without. The squaws caught the fish. They paddled to the fishing ground
in the morning and at night, when for an hour each time, the light
being just right, the fish would bite. The line was a strand of seaweed,
which may be had there, slender and strong, of any length up to a
hundred fathoms, perhaps. Bait--meat--was tied to one end of the line,
which was loaded with a sinker of stone rounded to a shape to sink
swiftly. The fish swallowed the bait and the squaw drew it gently but
quickly to the surface. Then she snatched the fish into the boat and the
bait from its gullet with a motion that Georges Bank codfishermen
understand, and then let her bait run quickly down again. Some fish, too
large to land thus, were speared when they came in sight. The time for
fishing was so short that the squaws had to improve it to the utmost
advantage, especially as there were many days when the storms prevented
all fishing. They had no time to waste in removing hooks from the
gullets of fish. It is a fact that when hooks were given them by seamen
they never used the things for fishing. The Yahgan squaws did not know
the joys of taking four-pound trout with a seven-ounce rod, but they had
just as much fun as do the New Yorkers who go out to the fishing banks
every summer day, and they caught more fish, too.
The Yahgan household utensils were few in number and of the simplest
character. He made neither pots, nor kettles, nor cups, nor basins, nor
any sort of receptacle for liquids. He never boiled his food, and when
the missionaries came to the Yahgan land the Indians found the spectacle
of a pot full of boiling meat a most entertaining one. And yet the
Yahgans tried out the oil from whale blubber and other fats, and stored
it away for future use. The fat was impaled on a stick that was then
thrust into the ground close to a bed of coals. The oil was tried out
thus, and it dripped down into the shoulder blade of a guanaco kept for
the purpose. When the hollow of this bone was full, the oil was poured
into a bladder or into the bladder-like leaf of a seaweed that can be
found everywhere in the region. Moreover, there were large clam and
other sea shells on every beach. These served every need of the Yahgan
in the way of cups and basins. What he needed to make he made with
unusual neatness and skill, but he knew when he had enough and worked
for nothing whatever beyond.
If, now, it has been demonstrated that the early explorers looked at the
Yahgan products through prejudiced eyes, the reader will pass with
increasing pleasure to a consideration of the habits of thought and
mental capacity of this Antarctic highlander. I quote Darwin in this
matter, because he was the most eminent of all who have seen the
Yahgans, and should have been less liable than others to make errors.
Darwin had on his ship a Yahgan called Jemmy Button, who had been
carried to England and taught some of the English language. Of this
Yahgan Darwin said: "I should think there was scarcely another human
being with so small a stock of language."
The Rev. Thomas Bridges, who now lives opposite Gable Island, in the
Beagle Channel, has for nearly forty years made a study of the Yahgans
and their language. He has made out of this study a complete grammar of
their language, and has written what is practically a complete
Yahgan-English lexicon. Fully to appreciate the facts that appear in
these two manuscript books, one must not only be something of a
linguist, but must have knowledge of other aboriginal tribes. For
instance, it is helpful to know that Ensign Roger Wells, Jr., U. S.
Navy, working in Alaska, prepared an Anglo-Eskimo Vocabulary of 2263
words, and an Eskimo-English Vocabulary of 2418 words. To quote from a
pamphlet issued by the Alaskan Bureau of Education in 1890, _Circular of
Information No. 2_, the most important contribution to a knowledge of
the Eskimo language is in process of preparation by L. M. Turner, in his
observations made in 1882-84, at Point Barrow. "It will contain a
vocabulary of the Koksoagmyut of over 7000 words."
Cruden's _Concordance of the Bible_ gives 7200 words exclusive of proper
names; Cleveland's _Concordance to the Poems of Milton_ gives Milton's
Vocabulary as 17,377 words, while Shakespeare himself had a vocabulary
of about 24,000.
But the Yahgans, despised by many as "savages of the lowest grade,"
pitied by a few as "most abject and miserable creatures"--these Yahgans
had a language from which has been compiled a vocabulary of over 40,000
words.
As I have said, this is a story in part of one of the most interesting
American tribes. How small is the proportion of the story that I can
give may be inferred from what has just been said about their language.
Where did they get or develop all those words? Are those 40,000 words
the remains of a language which, under other circumstances, was greater,
or is the vocabulary now at its greatest state of perfection? How does
it happen that such a remarkable mental development was found in a
people that lived as these Yahgans did? Questions multiply, but no
answers are found.
Anthropologists suppose that the peoples living at the ends of the earth
under adverse circumstances are "conquered races, exiles, or criminals."
It is guessed by some who have read of the Yahgan that he comes from
some ancient Peruvian or Brazilian civilized tribe, and fled in war time
to Cape Horn. But the Yahgan language is not that of Peru or of Brazil,
or even that of the lost tribes of Israel. There is in it nothing to
connect it with any of the other great languages of the world. Why,
then, should we think incredible the possibility of the Yahgans having
originated where they are? In the alluvial beds of Patagonia and of
Tierra del Fuego are found the petrified remains of the opossum, the
kangaroo, and the monkey. The ostrich and a modified camel (the
guanaco), now live on the desert plains of Patagonia. Who, then, shall
say positively that the Yahgan race has not lived through the cataclysms
that destroyed the opossum and the monkey and left the ostrich and the
camel?
Some years ago the Chili Government sent an expedition to explore the
Yahgan country. The report made by the commander on his return refers to
the Yahgan language as "nasal and harsh; it sounds like the barking of a
dog," but all who speak the language agree that it is as soft and sweet
to the ear as a love-song in French.
To make a study of the construction of this language here would be
impossible for lack of space, even if I knew the facts, but something of
the way the Yahgans talked to one another will be interesting, because
it gives an insight into their character. Let it be remembered that this
was a tribe of so-called savages, and that among savages the squaw is
supposed to be a wretched slave. To the casual observer the Yahgan squaw
was a slave. She paddled the canoe "while the man sat in the bow holding
his weapons." But the Yahgan squaw's life was certainly not without its
amenities, if one may judge by the language.
Thus the Yahgan man never spoke to his squaw of any property in the
family as "mine." He said "ours" instead. He even said "our harpoon." He
never gave orders directly to either squaw or child. If he wanted
something done he would use an expression that meant "Tell to do"; it
was as if he said to his squaw, "Have some one do so and so." More
remarkable still, there was no such word in the language as "obey." They
said instead, "Oblige me by," "Make me the favor of," "Would you be
pleased or be so kind as to do this or that?" Even when the Yahgan was
angry and wished to drive away an offensive person he used a polite
sentence.
As among civilized people certain terms and names may be used between
man and wife, or when talking to a physician or between two men talking
alone, without incurring an accusation of using indecent language, so
among the Yahgans there were certain forms of expression for use in
private and others for society. In short, it was a modest race; in this
respect it was, perhaps, the most remarkable of all the American Indian
nations.
They had poets and novelists and historians. They knew, for instance,
how to tell in the most delicate fashion those sly stories in which the
point was found in the thought of the listeners, and not in the words of
the speaker--where the speaker's words suggested but did not say the
thought. No people in the world enjoyed well-told stories of the kind
more than they, but only the skilful--the literati--were permitted to
tell them. A gross expression was never permitted in company. It is a
lasting pity that none of these tales has been preserved for study. The
missionary taught the Yahgans that their soul's salvation was imperilled
by such thoughts, and the remnant of the race has become so degraded in
every way that the best of this wonderful oral literature has been lost.
They had songs, but no music as civilized people understand that word.
Their songs were what travellers call "monotonous chants." However, they
danced to some songs, and their words were poetic if the song did lack
jingle and varied intonations.
"Food was abundant in the old days," said the Rev. Thomas Bridges, "and
life was easy with them." Hence the Yahgans had abundant leisure to sit
about the hut fire and talk to one another. Their conversation is best
described by the word bright. They were as quick-witted--as quick and
brilliant at repartee as the Irish or French. They also made many puns.
They were what may be called a "clubable race," to borrow a Johnsonian
expression. The missionaries say that within their limits of knowledge
they were ready and logical thinkers. Sarcastic remarks and cynical
observations abounded in their fireside conversations, as well as
flashes of kindly humor.
In politics and religion they were almost equally interesting. They had
no form of government--neither chief nor legislative council--but public
opinion ruled with an iron hand. Theirs was the simplest form of a
republic. When men violated social usages, as sometimes happened, the
guilty were ostracized, and such was the habit of thought among them
that this ostracism drove the guilty one away to live by himself.
Occasionally several families were thus driven into exile together, but
I did not learn of the existence of any such colonies of outlaws as
that found below St. Lawrence Bay on the Siberian coast or the
Kevalinyes, whose home is back of Point Hope in Alaska.
Crimes against property were rare. As to the property of white men they
were called thieves and robbers. Fitzroy is particularly severe on them
in describing their lax notions about property. It seems to me, however,
that the Yahgans and all aboriginal tribes, for that matter, have been
unjustly condemned in this matter. That they took things that seemed of
infinite value to them, which did not belong to them, is not denied. But
this act was not morally what the same act on the part of a civilized
man would have been. Among the aborigines--especially among the
Yahgans--there was much property held in common. It was no harm among
them to take of a neighbor's fuel; his paints were freely divided; his
wood for use in making paddles or spear-shafts was practically common
property. All food taken was equally divided, and when chance threw a
prize, say a wrecked ship, in their way, all shared the valuables found.
So when they saw among white men a superabundance of good things, the
taking of what they saw did not seem the evil thing that it would have
been to the conscience of a white thief. They were, in short, socialists
rather than thieves.
Crimes against the person were avenged by the injured one or his
relatives, so that feuds and vendettas led families to hunting each
other, hither and yon, across stormy seas and into wild and secluded
nooks and inlets. But the Yahgan did not delight in open warfare or
bloodshed. Warfare with neighboring tribes was almost unknown. The
nearest approach to it was when some Yahgan family went hunting some
family of a neighboring tribe to avenge an injury suffered by some
member of the aggressive family. On rare occasions other families in
both tribes took up the quarrel.
The Yahgan could work himself into a foaming passion--he literally
frothed at the mouth in his rage--but he preferred to make even murder a
fine art. He would plan and scheme for months in order that he might
revenge himself without making an open attack. It is said that even the
strong and influential in a clan would work in this fashion when seeking
revenge on the weaker ones, who might have been crushed by a blow at any
moment.
A favorite way of killing an enemy was found in the practice of
gathering the eggs of the sea fowl. In the Cape Horn region the sea fowl
make their nests on the faces of precipices that literally overhang the
stormy seas. There is but one way to reach the nests. The egg gatherer
must be lowered by a rope from the brow of the cliff. The Yahgans had an
excellent rope in the long stalks of seaweed common in the region, and
the egg harvest was for most of them a time of rejoicing. It was also
the time for bloody revenges. The one who sought revenge would ask his
enemy to go seeking eggs, and that was an invitation not to be declined.
Even when the invited one suspected a sinister motive in the cordiality
of the request he must needs accept, because a refusal would be
construed by his neighbors into an acknowledgment that the other had
cause for seeking revenge. And such an acknowledgment would justify the
other in more open means of revenge, and would stamp the refuser as a
coward also.
So the invited one would smilingly accept the invitation. With his heart
sinking within him, he would follow the leader to the crest of the
awful precipice, look down five hundred feet to the crags at its foot,
and then without a word suffer himself to be lowered over the brow at
the end of a rope that he knew would soon be chafed until his weight
would break it.
These Yahgans had no knowledge of God or of a life to come. That they
should have faced certain death in a frightful form thus calmly when
they were young, and life was still sweet, and a loved wife and children
would be left to other hands, is one of their most interesting
characteristics.
Although about all the crimes known to Yahgans grew out of the relations
of the sexes--although there was almost invariably a woman in every
case--it is a fact that the grossest crimes of passion known to
civilized races (such as incest) were unknown among Yahgans.
Marriage was a matter of purchase and sale; wives were sold, sometimes,
by husbands, and daughters were invariably sold by fathers. The marriage
ceremony consisted in painting the girl in a certain fashion for several
days before she was delivered to her husband. A new canoe was very often
the price of a girl. It is a curious fact, illustrative of Yahgan
society, that a father sometimes sold his girls to men whom he did not
really like. A man of influence could have any girl he wished; her
father would rather let the transfer be made than offend the man of
influence, and that, too, when the influential fellow already had a wife
or two. But there were forms and methods in the marriage negotiations
that were dear to the Yahgan heart. The dicker for a wife as conducted
amounted to what would be among civilized people at once an intrigue and
the negotiating of a treaty. It was because of this delicacy of feeling
among the Yahgans that the brutal white whalers and seal hunters that
came to the region were unable to do any serious damage to this race
previous to the year 1870. The Yahgan would not tolerate the rude
lasciviousness of the white seamen, and until taught that it was wicked,
stood up, man fashion, and fought in defence of his wives and daughters.
In religion the Yahgans were oddities, though not unique. They knew
nothing of God, and had no word expressive of such an idea. To the great
grief of the missionaries, there was nothing in the Yahgan language by
which the idea of an everlasting, all-powerful God who must be obeyed
could be adequately conveyed to Yahgan listeners, nor had they any word
for or thought of a future life.
But the Yahgan's mind was not wholly material. He believed in spirits or
supernatural and invisible beings, but these were invariably terrible.
There was a spirit of the forest, and another of the water, and another
of the kelp. Crouching over his tiny fire by night, the Yahgan heard
weird voices among the waving trees on the mountain side above him, he
felt the breath that scattered the embers of his hearth, he saw the
deluge that drowned out even his brightest flames, and all these were
manifestations of a power that was ill-defined in his mind, but
nevertheless real. The Yahgan mother in this fearsome presence clasped
her babe more closely to her bosom, not that it was cold, but to save it
from some grasping hand that was always expected, but never came.
In the eddying waters of the tide rip was a boisterous devil that strove
at one moment to throw the canoe into the air, and the next to suck it
down to the unknown region below, while in the beds of kelp lurked a
silent spirit that with soft and slimy touch grasped the bottom of the
canoe, and held it fast until at times the frantic occupants leaped
overboard and disappeared.
In their thoughts of death the Yahgans were perhaps unique. They had a
word which meant dead. When a seal had been harpooned, or a tree cut
down, or a fish beheaded, they said that death ensued. The thing killed
was dead. They had another word which meant lost. If a tool were mislaid
so that it could not be found, or if a dog were left somewhere on the
coast so that he could not find his way to his master's hut, the tool or
the dog was lost.
In times of sickness or of wounds, the Yahgans gathered about an
afflicted one and with rude incantations strove to save the ebbing life
until the spirit had gone forever. Then they quickly took up the body,
and, carrying it out of the wigwam, buried it where it could be most
easily put out of sight. This done, they returned and painted their
faces in such fashion that all other Yahgans who beheld them could tell
how closely the dead one had been related to the living, and the cause
of the death--whether by disease, by accident, or by murder. This was
their only way of showing they were in mourning. They rarely spoke of
the one who had passed away, and when they did so speak they never said
he was dead. They said he was lost.
This also was a matter of grief to the missionaries. When they would
have spoken to the Yahgan of his dead relatives they could not without
offending him seriously; at least that was the condition of affairs when
the missionaries first came.
They had a folk-lore that is now for the most part forgotten, but one
of their traditions was at the foundation of a cruel custom. Long ago,
they said, a Yahgan woman chose a great rock instead of a husband, and,
in consequence, bore a child that was at once a human being and a stone.
When this hybrid grew to man's estate it turned against the tribe,
because, perhaps, of indignities suffered by its mother, who was
ostracized. No Yahgan man could stand against it, though numbers could
temporarily overpower it. They, therefore, combined and thrust harpoons
through it; they chopped it to pieces; they weighted it with rocks and
cast it into a lake; but after each apparent death it appeared again in
another part of the coast as healthy as and rather more malicious than
before. The monster was rapidly becoming an invincible terror, when, by
chance, it stepped on a thorn, which pierced its heel and the monster
was unable to extract it. Its heel was the one part of its body where a
mortal wound could be inflicted. From the effects of this thorn it
became gradually weakened, and they were eventually able to destroy it
altogether. The memory of the deeds done by this being was so
terrifying, that the tribe determined that no such thing should ever
come again to wreck their peace.
To prevent such a coming they invariably destroyed at birth any infant
that came into the world not perfectly formed. The Yahgan's stature was
not such as to meet the approval of the British explorers from whom
Americans have obtained their ideas of Yahgan forms, but there never was
a natural-born cripple to be seen among them.
What the Yahgans' claims to physical beauty were may still be learned by
one who sees them at the Hermite group of islands, but in the Beagle
Channel they have been so altered by new clothing and habits of life
that scarcely a trace of their old-time form remains. The description of
the old-time navigator is not attractive:
These poor wretches were stunted in their growth, their hideous
faces bedaubed with paint, their skins filthy and greasy, their
hair entangled.
They are elsewhere spoken of as having dark, copper-colored skins, or
skins of the color of iron rust, while Captain Fitzroy pictures them as
almost black.
One may admit that these old explorers had good eyes, that they
generally described with accuracy what they saw, and yet may prove that
the Yahgans were not hideous.
To begin the argument, it must be said that the missionaries, who had no
interest in making the untutored Yahgan appear in a better light than
that in which he was found, say that he was a polite and affectionate
husband and father, faithful in the care of widows and orphans, a
generous neighbor, and an ardent lover. Food was abundant, and hard
labor rarely necessary. He delighted in what civilized people call the
higher pleasures, the joys of good stories, witty sayings, quick
repartee, and he had almost unlimited opportunity for cultivating the
faculties which gave him greatest pleasure. How could such a man be
hideous?
The answer to the allegation made by the explorers who called the Yahgan
so is not far to seek. They never saw the Yahgan. They only saw the
coating of paint and whale oil that covered him, and because this was
offensive to them they called him hideous. The Yahgan when washed clean,
did not look like the Yahgan clothed in whale oil, smoke from the
ever-present fire, ashes, powdered iron ore, pipe clay--what not. When
washed he was not black; he was not even copper colored. He was as white
as the quarter bloods one sees in the Cherokee nation and as well
featured. The young women were very like those of mixed blood who grace
the halls of the female seminary at Tahlequa, the Cherokee capitol. The
modern tourist camera proves it. Yahgans had straight black hair, great
dark eyes, full red lips, breasts like a Greek Venus, rounded limbs, and
small hands and feet. Better yet, they had a merry, hearty laugh that
was irresistibly infectious. They flushed with pleasure, and blushed and
drooped as if from a blow when shamed.
If ever the moans of outraged Indian maidenhood were charged up by the
Recording Angel against the brutality of the civilized man, it was when
the sufficient arm that protected the Yahgan girl was withdrawn through
a misapplication of the gospel of peace.
Just how the Yahgan maiden lost that protecting arm--just how it
happened that the forecastle brutes came to be free to go and come as
they pleased among the Yahgan homes--will be told in the next chapter,
but what that arm was is found in the tales of seamen cast on these
shores in the old days, or caught napping there when seeking fuel or
water for their ships.
When a band of Yahgans saw a crew of white men ashore in former times,
their course of action was governed entirely by the numbers of the
whites, or, rather, by the comparative strength of the two parties. If
the whites were stronger, the Indians were peaceable; when it was safe
to do so, the Indians set out to exterminate all the whites but one.
Leaping into their canoes some of the Indians would paddle out to cut
off retreat toward the sea, and when they were in place, the rest would
rush down on the seamen, and if possible save all alive for the time
being. Then all the clan gathered about the captives and selected one of
the whites--saved him alive, but forced him to witness the dying
struggles of the rest. Very often those doomed to death were made to
stand in a row facing the one that was saved, that he might the better
witness their despairing faces and see the blood gush from their wounds.
Eventually the one who was saved was taken to the Straits of Magellan,
and there placed on board the first ship that appeared. It was perfectly
plain that a man from each crew was thus sent back to the whites that he
might tell other whites of the fate that befell all foreigners who
landed in Yahgan land. They wanted the whites to keep away from them,
and they took a most effectual means to keep them away. With certain
death staring in the face, any crew that was outnumbered by the natives,
even the sealers, took care to avoid going among the Yahgans. The
Yahgan's deliberate ferocity--ferocity that was exercised with a
purpose--was the sufficient protection of the Yahgan maidens.
As has been said, the Yahgans had an abundance of food in the old days.
The cold waters about Cape Horn swarmed with whales. So numerous were
the fur seals that one sealing schooner got a "first knock down" on one
island of 11,000 head. The hair seal, the otter, and the sea lion were
found by the thousand. Swans, geese, ducks, penguins, gulls, beat the
air and ploughed the waters in uncounted hosts. There were fish in the
sea and guanacos on the land. For a vegetable food there was "a bright
yellow fungus," "elastic and turgid," that had "a mucillaginous,
slightly sweet taste, with a faint smell like that of a mushroom." There
were wild currants and strawberries that tasted more like a raspberry
than like its northern namesake. There was a berry that grew on a thorny
bush (berberis). But the mainstay of the Yahgan was the shell-fish.
Mussels and clams covered every rock under water, and these were alone
sufficient in number and in food qualities to preserve life for long
periods.
The explorers say the Yahgans ate guanaco meat raw. The Rev. Thomas
Bridges denies this. He says, in a lecture on the Yahgans, prepared for
delivery before white folks:
They toasted whale or seal blubber on pointed sticks stuck in the
ground, and caught the oil in large mussel shells placed
underneath. As these filled they poured the oil into bladders for
future use. They dried out fish fat by putting it in large shells
and placing heated stones or shells on it. They cooked large birds
whole by burying them in the coals with hot stones placed inside.
They baked eggs by placing them, after a small hole had been made
in each shell, on end close to the embers and turning them from
time to time. They uniformly ate the blood of animals, but always
cooked it in shells first. I have never seen or heard of the
Yahgans eating any kind of meat or fish raw except certain kinds of
limpets. I have occasionally heard of their heating water by
dropping hot stones into it, but they did not cook their vegetable
food. In winter, however, they warmed the frozen fungi that formed
a part of their diet.
A thousand other interesting facts and characteristics of this
long-despised tribe remain untold here.
There was their habit of carrying dry bird's down to catch the spark
when they struck fire with the iron ore they found on one island only.
They had a tradition that in by-gone years a great flood raised the
waters to the level of certain lines on the mountains, to which they
point the traveller.
They were sensitive about growing old, and it was because their beard
grew late in life and so indicated advancing years that the men plucked
it out.
They were a long-lived race, and some probably lived to be a hundred in
the old days.
They were not cannibals, but held human life as sacred as civilized
people do. It is admitted that in times of dire distress, through
prolonged storms, they sacrificed one (an old woman) to save the rest,
but if that made them cannibals then an American army officer held in
high esteem is a cannibal.
When food was scarce those who got it divided all they had with those
less fortunate, and while hunting away from the huts the men subsisted
on the inferior parts, that they might carry the parts most esteemed to
the women and children.
They did not beat their wives, nor did they punish their children.
To sum the matter up, this was a race, more than three thousand in
number, called the most abject and wretched people in the world, and
yet, "in their circumstances and with their materials, their work was
perfect." They were called savages, and yet neither governor nor judge
was needed to preserve the prosperity of the nation. They were called
heathen, because they knew not God; and yet, prompted by an inner light,
they took no thought for the morrow, they visited the widow and the
orphan in their affliction; neither was there any among them that
lacked. Clear-eyed and strong-limbed, they were able, twenty years ago,
to face the white destroyer as they faced the howling gales that swept
their rugged coasts.
Today the traveller can find, though he search diligently, rather less
than three hundred, but to one who knew them in the old days those seen
anywhere now, save on Hermite Island, would not be recognizable. The
Rev. John Lawrence told me that they were civilized, but to one who can
understand and appreciate the aborigines as God made them, this change,
instead of being a matter of congratulation, is one that should make
every white man connected with it hide his head in shame, and every
other one who sees it shed tears of pity.