1892-93.] NOTES ON THE WESTERN DENES. 15 



are no Denes on the Hudson Bay any more than on the Pacific. The 

 former is peopled on the north by the Eskimos and on the south by 

 tribes of Algonquian parentage, while several alien races cover the whole 

 northern coast of the latter, with, perhaps, a single insignificant excep- 

 tion.* Third, The Loucheux and the Kuchin are one and the same 

 tribe under different names, the first being that originally applied to it 

 by the French-Canadian voyageurs, while the second (which should read 

 Ku-tchin or Ku-t'qin, the last syllable being exploded with the tongue 

 and teeth) is more in honour among English-speaking ethnographers. 

 The latter vocable is the exact equivalent of the Carrier " hwo'ten ", the 

 Tse'kehne " hwot'qen ", the Tsi^Koh'tin " kwo'tin ", all of which, as we 

 have already seen, signify " Inhabitants." Fourth, The Kenai spoken 

 of by Dr. Brinton are probably the K'naia-Kho-tana of Dr. Powell and 

 both authors may be right in placing their habitat on the Pacific Ocean. 

 Yet it must be admitted that this would be more evident, were not Dr. 

 Brinton to transport it, ten pages further on, among the immense plains 

 claimed by the Blackfeet as their ancestral home.f 5th, The would-be 

 Nehaunees, Sekaunies and TakuUies call themselves Nah'ane, Tse'kehne 

 ■and TaKejne respectively. 6th, The Sarcees now live about the southern 

 head waters of the Saskatchewan, but formerly lived some degrees further 

 north among the Beaver Indians with whom they are congenerous, 

 even as a subdivision of the Tse'kehne tribe. 



Nothing but a desire of serving the interests of ethnological science 

 has prompted the above remarks. That I can prove all I advance will 

 not be ^oubted by those who are cognizant of the opportunities I enjoy 

 of ascertaining the real ethnologic status of the tribes by which I am 

 surrounded or of those which are so closely related by blood and language 

 with that among which I now live. The inaccuracies which the)" are 

 aimed at correcting must also be my excuse for venturing to present 

 below the list, as complete as I can make it, of all the Dene tribes. A 

 very few of the southern tribes may be unwittingly omitted; but I would 

 rather sin by omission than by exaggeration. All the northern tribes 



* This is the fCtiaia-Kko-tatia who are now" said to reach the coast on Cook's Inlet (Dr. 

 Powell's " Indian Linguistic P'amilies," yth Ann. Rep. liur. EthnoL). But the fact that this 

 learned ethnographer associates thereto the " Ahthena " of Copper River renders the identifica- 

 tion of that tribe somewhat doubtful, inasmuch as the "Ahtena," unless they are misnamed , 

 must be exogenous to the Dene stock, since that very name means in Dene " foreigners," and is 

 used by our aborigines to designate all Indians of non-Dene stock. K'naia-Kho-tana, however, 

 seems to have the right linguistic ring about it, and apparently refers to the " people of the river 

 K'naia," whatever this last noun may mean. 



+ "Their [the Blackfeet] bands include the Blood or Kenai 2,^^ the Piegan Indians" p. 79. 

 The italics are mine. 



