36 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



[Vol. IV. 



These words, coming from an author who is generally so well informed^ 

 are at best perplexing. To whom does he allude in this reference to the 

 maize growing huntsmen of the interior ? Most people will answer that 

 it must be to the Dene Indians who, in the latitude within which the 

 subjects of his sketch are stationed, people the American Continent 

 practically in its whole breadth. Of course, he cannot thereby refer to 

 the Iroquois and the Hurons whose habitat is close to the Atlantic, not 

 the Pacific coast. Now it is so well known that the Denes were but 

 recently innocent of the least attempt at cultivation that I cannot regard 

 this extraordinary assertion as anything else than a slip of the pen. 



A natural apathy, lack of artistic ambition or want of skill caused the 

 Western Denes to be practical, rather than aesthetic craftsmen. Where 

 extra exertion was not absolutely necessary, it was very seldom bestowed 

 upon any kind of work. Therefore most of the implements which we 

 shall examine in the following chapters are ^exceedingly simple and 

 sometimes even rude in appearance. For instance, the D^ne, knowing by 

 experience that a stone lashed, while in its natural state, to his fishing- 

 net was doing as good service as the most elaborate sinker, never 

 attempted to fashion it into any of the artistic shapes given similar 

 implements by many other families of Aborigines. For this reason carved 

 or even merely grooved sinkers are also to be classed among the indus- 

 trial implements unknown to the Western Denes. 



A fact which will perhaps elicit incredulous comment is that not only 

 our Aborigines' earliest acquaintance with tobacco, native or Nicotian, 

 dates only from 1792 for the Tse'kehne and 1793 for the Carriers, but 

 even the very act of smoking was unknown to them prior to those dates. 

 As a consequence, pipes of any material or form are an adventitious 



Fig. I. 



item amongst them. Fig. i represents the earliest known model of pipes 

 of Dene manufacture. It consists of a stone bowl with a serrated base 

 wherein a wooden stem has been inserted. Bowl and stem are connected 



