Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

IDEAS OF llELIGION. 179 with these natives. It became a saying among us, that such a person was as troublesome as a Fuegian doctor. In each family the word of an old man is accepted as law by the young people ; they never dispute his authority. War- fare, though nearly continual, is so desultory, and on so small a scale among them, that the restraint and direction of their elders, advised as they are by the doctors, is sufficient. Ideas of a spiritual existence — of beneficent and evil powers — they certainly have ; but I never witnessed or heard of any act of a decidedly religious nature, neither could I satisfy myself of their having any idea of the immortality of the soul. The fact of their believing that the evil spirit torments them in this world, if they do wrong, by storms, hail, snow, &c., is one rea- son why I am inclined to think that they have no thought of a future retribution. The only act I have heard of which could be supposed devotional, is the following. When Matthews was left alone with them for several days, he sometimes heard a great howling, or lamentation, about sun-rise in the morn- ing ; and upon asking Jemmy Button what occasioned this outcry, he could obtain no satisfactory answer ; the boy only saying, " people very sad, cry very much.''' Upon one occa- sion, when some canoes were alongside the Beagle, at a subsequent visit to the Beagle Channel (in 1834), a sudden howl from one of the Fuegians aroused several others who were near, and at the opposite side of the vessel, when a ge- neral howl of lamentation took place, which was ended by a low growling noise. By this, as well as by pulling their hair, and beating their breasts, while tears streamed down their faces, they evinced their sorrow for the fate of some friends who had perished, some days before the Beagle's arrival, by the upsetting of a loaded canoe.* There was no regular weeping, nor any thing at all like the downright cry of a civilized being it was a noise which seemed to be peculiar to a savage. This howling was mostly among the men, only one young woman was similarly affected. Now whether the noises heard by • The bottom of a Fuegian canoe is full of mud, or clay, for the fire- place. N 2