The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-11-06
YAHGAN INDIANs-oAPE SAN DIEGO.

ers is over, when they go back for an
other fat but now welI-rotted feed.
They eat the flesh of stranded whales
and fish which they find upon the
shore, but as rule do not go out in
canoes to fish, as do the Yaghans and
the Alacalufes. They also make traps
to catch game. They use only bows
and arrows in war and for hunting.
The arrows were originally tipped with
flint. but now they are pointed with
pices of glass made out of the broken
whisky and wine bottles thrown out
by the steamers passing through the
Strait of Magellan. THE Ona women
weave very pretty rush baskets Of a
bowl shape. They cure the skins which
their husbands bring in from the hunt
and sew them together with sinews
into robes or rugs. These Onas, I am
told, have no great spirit or God. like
our Indians. Just what their religion
is L am unable to learn. They believe
In polygamy, one man having seveal
wives, which he buys of their fathers
at as low a price as he can.
ABOUT THE YAGHANs.
Before the whites came here there
were something like three thousand of
the Yaghan Indians. They were de-
scribed by sea captains as a healthy.
hearty, naked, savage race. The Eng
liSh established a. mission In south
TERRA del Fuego and persuaded them
to put on clothes. It is claimed that
with the wearing of clothes came con-
sumption and pneumonia, and that this
has reduced their number to less than
300. The head of the mission among
the Indians is the Rev. Thomas Bridges,
who has big sheep farm in the south.
He has an Indian settlement where
the npnnlA live in hnTcoc
they farm on small scale. The in
formation 1 have about these Yaghans
comes almost entirely from Mr.
Bridges. He says they live in groups
of about thirty families. They are not
cannibals, as has been charged, and
they do not eat raw meat. Their prln-
cipa1 food consists of molusks, fish. sea
calves, birds, Strawberries and fungi.
Their women cook these things in diff
ferent ways. They cook birds by
placing them on the Goals and putting
red-hot stones on them. They bake
eggs by breaking a small hole in one
end and then stand them upright in
the ennbers before the fire, turning
them round and round to make them
cook evenly. They cook and eat the
blood of animals. The women are tho
fishers, and the men do the hunting.
The men make canoes, but the women
paddle them. They are good boatmen
and are better and more fearless SWIM
mers than the men.
One of the wonderful things about
the Yaghans is their language. With
no means of writing, they have a
| ocabulary of about 40 900 words Mr.
Bridges, who has made a Yaghan.
| English dictionary, gives this as the
number. The Eskimo use, it is said. less
! than 10000 words, and Shakespeare's
/ vocabulary contained only $4,000 words.
! There are only 1900 different words in
| the Bible, and in all of Millions poems
you will find less than $4,000 words. I
take these figures from John R. Spears
book. recently published, on "Gold
Diggings of Cape Horn"
TERRA DEL FUEGO IN 1898
The TERRA del Fuego of the geogra-
piles and encyclopedias is a drearv
land CT snow and Ice, of glaciers and
rocky wastes. Let me tell you what
the real TERRA del Fuego is. Ny in
| formation comes from what I have
seen and from what I have learned
from the men who lived upon it and
who have visited nearly every part of
IT. 1T is important to know for it is
I one OF the bones of contention between
Chile and the Argentine republic, and
IN the war which seems now imminent
II may be redivided. AS it is. Chile
owns the lions share Of it, having
quietly surveyed the coast and COB
bled up the Strait of Magellan before
the Argentine knew what she was
| about The Argentines today think
that the island should belong to them
but rather than have a war they have
conceded all to Chile west of a line
running south of Cape Virgins, at the
eastern entrance to the Strait Of Ma
gellan. The result is they own only
a footing on the archipelago and only
a small slice of TERRA del Fuego prop
| er.
The archipelago of TERRA del Fuego
contains as much land as Kansas. 1t
is wider from east to west than from
Cleveland to Chicago and from north
to south it is longer than from New
| York to Boston. The archipelago is
made UP of hundreds of wooded ISL
| ands, mostly mountainous, but a few
| of which have valleys and plains COW
eged with rich grass on which sheen
| and cattle quickly grow fat. The
largest islands of the archipelago are
] Onisin, or King Charles Southland, or