The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn: A Study of Life in Tierra del Fuego and PatagoniaSpears, John Randolph
History
The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn: A Study of Life in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia
Spears, John Randolph
Patagonia (Argentina and Chile) -- Description and travel
This brings us to one of the most remarkable facts in connection with
the Onas. They do not build boats and neither do the Tehuelches of
Patagonia, but considerable numbers of Onas have been found in Patagonia
and may still be found there.
How these Onas got over to Patagonia without a boat is an interesting
question, but it is not unlikely that they swam across on some hot day
in summer at the first narrows in the Strait of Magellan. A strong
swimmer could easily cross there at slack water, in spite of the low
temperature of the strait.
The Onas in their native land have no horses. They have in these last
years captured a good many from the sheep men, but they have eaten them
as fast as they got them. Horse meat is the greatest of delicacies to
them as it is to the Tehuelches. Their chief dependence for food is the
guanaco that abounds in Tierra del Fuego and a prairie squirrel. In the
chase they depend on bows and arrows and the bolas chiefly. But the Onas
often kill the guanaco by surrounding a bunch and running them down.
Thus the Ona has become, probably, the best cross-country runner in the
world. One shepherd told me that often, when mounted on a first-class
mustang, he had been obliged to chase an Ona five miles across the plain
before he could get "within killing range of the thief," and even then
the Indian was not unlikely to double or dodge and escape altogether.
The picture of an Ona Indian flying for life across the prairies with a
relentless horseman in pursuit is something to stir the blood of the
spectator; it would stir the blood of a citizen of "the boundless
plains" of the United States in one way, and that of "the Quakers in the
effete East" in another, however. But it is a picture often seen in
these days in Tierra del Fuego.
The home of the Ona is as bad as any in the world. A saucer-shaped
hollow big enough for a bed for all the family is scooped in the ground.
In the little ridge about this poles and brush are placed, and over the
weather side of the brush is thrown a skin or two. The fire is usually
built just without, but near the door of the hut. It is more useful for
cooking food than for imparting warmth. The Onas at night allow the fire
to go out. To protect themselves from the cold they resort to a novel
blanket. They all lie down on the ground with the children in the middle
of the huddle, and then call their dogs to come and lie around and over
them. It is a poverty-stricken Ona family that has not enough dogs to
cover it out of sight. The dogs are a sharp-nosed but hairy lot, and
they certainly keep the family warm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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