From the concurrent, but quite independent evidence of the boy taken by Mr.
Low, and of Jemmy Button, it is certainly true, that when pressed in winter by hunger they kill and devour their old women before they kill their dogs: the boy, being asked by Mr.Low why they did this, answered, "Doggies catch otters, old women no." This boy described the manner in which they are killed by being held over smoke and thus choked; he imitated their screams as a joke, and described the parts of their bodies which are considered best to eat.

Horrid as such a death by the hands of their friends and relatives must be, the fears of the old women, when hunger begins to press, are more painful to think of; we were told that they then often run away into the mountains, but that they are pursued by the men and brought back to the slaughter-house at their own firesides! Captain Fitz Roy could never ascertain that the Fuegians have any distinct belief in a future life.

They sometimes bury their dead in caves, and sometimes in the mountain forests; we do not know what ceremonies they perform.

Jemmy Button would not eat land-birds, because "eat dead men"; they are unwilling even to mention their dead friends.

We have no reason to believe that they perform any sort of religious worship; though perhaps the muttering of the old man before he distributed the putrid blubber to his famished party may be of this nature.