1892-93.] NOTES ON THE WESTERN DENES. 37 



by means of a chain of dentalium shells alternating with coloured glass 

 beads. A pipe strikingly similar in form, but minus the string of shells 

 and beads, was also in use among the Shushwap Indians, the southern 

 neighbours of the Western Denes, as appears from a sketch in Dawson's 

 " Notes on the Shushwap People of British Columbia." * 



Against the above assertion as to the absence of smoking pipes among 

 the primitive Denes, it might be contended that the Tsi|Koh'tin, who 

 were more venturesome than the two other tribes, must have known 

 through the Coast and Shushwap Indians, the species of wild tobacco 

 which is said to have been cultivated by the natives of Queen Charlotte 

 Islands, or gathered in its wild state by the Shushwap.f But to any 

 person who is aware of the irresistible attraction all races of Aborigines 

 feel towards the use of the soothing weed, whether genuine or counter- 

 feit this hypothesis will appear altogether gratuitous. Albeit the tribal 

 intercourse between the Tsiykoh'tin and the Carriers was formerly a 

 rather rare occurrence and not always of the most friendly description, 

 had smoking been in vogue among the former, the latter could not well 

 have failed to notice in their neighbours a practice which is claimed to 

 have appeared so strange to them at the time of their first meeting with 

 the whites. Now both the Ts^'kehne and the Carriers are positive that 

 it was unknown to their ancestors previous to their encounter with 

 M^-tsi-ra-tiPt/on % or Sir Alex. McKenzie ; and they still recount, with 

 no lack of amusing details, first their stupefaction at beholding smoke 

 issuing from men's mouths, and then their scorn for tobacco when they 

 ascertained that it was not edible. § 

 I 



* Transact, R. S. C. p. .12, fig. 3; 1891. 



+ Vide : "On the Haida Indians of Queen Charlotte Islands," by G. M. Dawson, p. 114 b, 



115 b, Montreal, 1880 ; " Notes on the Shushwap People of B.C.," by G. M. Dawson, Trans. 

 R.S.C. Sect. II., p. 23, 1891 ; "Descriptive Notes on Certain Implements," etc., by Al. Mac- 

 kenzie, Trans. R.S.C, Sect. II., p. 55. 1891 ; "The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska," etc., 

 by A. P. Niblack, p. 333, 1890. 



Jin Tse'kehne : "his hair is plentiful," perhaps by allusion to the wig or queue worn by Sir 

 Alex. Mackenzie. 



§ The derivation of the word Pie^ka, by which the Carriers designate tobacco, has Jong 

 puzzled me. It must be either a borrowed word qr a word formed by agglutination, as the name 

 of the horse (yezih-ji, "elk-dog" or domestic elk). Now I have studied that word in the 

 vocabulary of over twenty tribes, all contiguous, mediately or immediately, without being able 

 to discover anything like an homonymous equivalent. On the other hand, the two parts of which 

 it is composed, 3te and 'ka, are genuine Carrier particles which, taken separately, are not with- 

 out meaning, but to which no rational signification can be ascribed when joined together. Yet 

 the names of all new objects in the Dene languages are either borrowed from foreign dialects, or 

 more generally formed by compounding, that is by the juxtaposition of two or more names of 

 objects already known. Thus, in Tsi^Koh'tin the name of the tobacco is ts9i-yu, which means 

 "smoke-medicine." Altogether, the Carrier (and Tse'kehne) word designating that imported 

 plant has the appearance of an old root of the second category, which is to me inexplicable. 



