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.