14 TRAN.SACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. IV. 



In Mexico, the number of Apaches is doubtful, since, according to 

 Dr. D. G. Brinton, "although the Mexican census of 1880 puts the 

 Mexican Apaches at 10,000, no such numbers can be located."* The 

 same author then goes on to state on the strength of information 

 emanating from Mr. Henshaw, of the Smithsonian Institution, that " the 

 only Apache band now known to be in Mexico are the Janos or Janeros 

 in Chihuahua, made up of Lipans and Mescaleros.f 



6. The Lipans, in New Mexico, who have dwindled down to forty 

 individuals. Their original home appears to have been on the Rio 

 Grande.^ 



It would not be pleasant to be represented as playing the role of the 

 carping critic. Yet even the fear of appearing to merit this uncompli- 

 mentary epithet, cannot deter me from pointing out how utterly meagre 

 and unreliable are the data possessed, even at the present time, by the 

 best ethnographers relatively to the Dene stock. Despite the correct list 

 of the Northern tribes given by the writer in the last volume of the 

 "Proceedings Canadian Institute," I find that Dr. D. G. Brinton in his 

 recent book " The American Race," published at Washington two years 

 after the aforesaid classification had been printed in Toronto, omits no 

 less than six Dene tribes of the great northern division. To show how 

 utterly mixed ethnography appears to be when it is a question of locating 

 the various Dene tribes, and thereby to excuse the details into which I 

 find myself obliged to enter, I take the liberty of quoting the following 

 sentences from the above mentioned work : — 



" These [the Denes] extend interruptedly from the Arctic Sea to the 

 borders of Durango, in Mexico, and from Hudson Bay to the Pacific. . . 

 The Loucheux have reached the mouth of the Mackenzie River, the 

 Kuchin are along the Yukon, the Kenai on the Ocean about the penin- 

 sula that bears their name, while the Nehaunies, Sekanies and TakuUies 

 are among the mountains to the south. The Sarcees lived about the 

 southern head waters of the Saskatchewan." § 



Now, with all the deference due to such a veteran ethnographer as 

 Dr. Brinton, truth bids me state that : — First, It is almost absolutely cer- 

 tain that no branch of the Dene family is stationed on the Arctic Sea, 

 the whole coast of which is occupied by Eskimo tribes. Second, There 



* "The American Race," p. 69, Washington, 1891. 



+ Ibtd. 



X The Karankawa Indians, etc., by A. S. Gatschet ; Cambridge, Mass., 1891. 



§ The American Race, pp. 68, 69. 



