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fishing. This territory, the beginning of a fatherland, is rela- tively large, but the hordes are separated from each other by wide neutral strips and deserts, quite analogous to what were called marshes in ancient Germany. 5 We shall devote a special chapter to the role and historic significance of marshes. They are of the utmost importance because of the light they throw upon the theory of frontiers. Darwin represents these people as constantly hungry, feeding upon rotten whales. The differ- ent tribes have neither government nor chief. Each of them is surrounded by other hostile tribes speaking different dialects. These tribes are separated from each other by neutral territory which is absolutely deserted. The principal cause of their con- tinual wars seems to have been the difficulty which they experi- enced in procuring food. In order to procure it they were forced to wander from place to place within the limits of their respective territories, and, as any hunter is tempted sometimes to poach, so they made incursions upon neighboring territory, passed beyond the limits of their own group ; and hence hostili- ties arose, which, however, the deserted spaces between the differ- ent tribes tended to lessen by making the incursions more difficult. These tribes lived in the most lamentable condition. They had, however, previously lived in habits quite favored by nature. What led them to live in these less favored conditions? Darwin proposes an answer, and his observation is confirmed by Letourneau 6 as well as by Herbert Spencer : 7
What has forced a tribe of men to leave the more favored regions of the north, to follow the Cordilleras southward, to invent and build boats which neither the tribes of Chili, nor of Peru, nor of Brazil have done,* and at last to come to inhabit one of the most inhospitable countries of the world ? There is no reason to believe that the number of the Fuegians decreased. We must then suppose that they enjoyed a certain amount of happiness and what- ever this happiness may have been, it was enough so that they clung to life.
- DARWIN, The Travels of a Naturalist, Vol. I, pp. 232 f.
- Political Evolution, p. 29.
T Principles of Sociology, Vol. I, pp. 27 f. (French translation).
- Observe that for three hundred years and more the Fuegian canoes have not
changed, as is shown by comparing those used in their first voyages with those used in their most recent ones.
