No. 3.] ANDERSON — NORTH-WESTERN AMERICA. 155 



Opposite to them, west of the Rocky Mountains, in a small 

 anii'le at the heads of the branch of the Columbia, are the Kou- 

 tananais, a small tribe, numbering in 1848 in all 829 souls. 

 These are isolated from all the surrounding races, and I have 

 never been able to trace their connexion. Adjoining them are 

 the Sacliss (called by the Black-feet " Flatheads") who with 

 their congeners the Shewhapmuch extend nearly to Alexandria, 

 meeting the Tah-Cully branch of the Tinneh race as already 

 mentioned. To the Shewhapmuch the Tah-Cully apply the 

 same name of " Atnah" (= Stranger Race) ; to their neighbors 

 wesward Atnah-yore. Mackenzie who descended the Fraser 

 no lower than the Tah-Cully frontier, and had with him no 

 interpreters through whom to communicate freely with the few 

 men of the lower nation whom he there met. He was thus led 

 to adopt the term " Atnah" as the true name of the tribe- 

 adding, however, the alternative " Chin" which has in reality 

 no existence. The late Mr. Geo. Gibbs, shortly before his 

 death, wrote to enquire the origin of the latter name. To 

 this enquiry I had no opportunity of replying ; and may now 

 state that I believe it to have arisen from misapprehension of 

 the meaning of the Indians while referring to the principal vil- 

 lage, or at least that in the most prominent position, at the con- 

 fluence of the Thompson with the Fraser. This is called 

 ThUk-um cheen (or-chin), the first two syllables very rapidly pro- 

 nounced, and the last strongly dwelt upon. To this village the 

 natives, both above and below, are fond of referring, apparently 

 with some pride, as the chief seat of their section of the gene- 

 ral tribe : and the conspicuous syllable dwelling on the ear of 

 Mackenzie, led him, I imagine, to suppose it was the name 

 given by themselves to their nation. I notice that the late 

 Mr. Simon Fraser, who with Mr. John Stuart first descen- 

 ded the river, now named after the former, in 1808, and a M.S. 

 copy of whose Journal is now before me, was partially misled 

 in the same probable way. He gives the name of the village 

 (but not as of the people) as Cum-chin. The whole ordinary 

 nomenclature of Indian tribes, however, such connexion invaria- 

 bly giving a different, and dersive name, originating in some 

 imputed or imagined characteristic (e. g. Blackfoot, Flathead, 

 Slave, &c), requires to be received with much caution. For 

 this reason, and to avoid the endless confusion of names, I have 

 along the north-west coast reduced them in the map as much as 



