189-2-93.] 



NOTES ON TIIK WESTF.RX DENES. 



115 



original state. A few cross sticks only prevent the sides from shrinking in 

 too much. This want of width, added to the fact that the prow is always 

 made of the broader end of the tree, renders these canoes very awkward 

 in stormy weather on our lakes, inasmuch as they generally compensate 

 in length what they lack in breadth. 



Another fact worthy of remark is that the Carriers, who owe to their 

 frequent intercourse with the Coast Indians, much of their technology 

 and all such of their customs as are unknown to the rest of the Dene 

 nation,* should have failed to take the hint from their maritime com- 

 mercial visitors and build wooden canoes, until they appropriated, some 

 seventy years ago, two rough " dug-outs " manned by a party of Iroquois 

 hailing from the East 



Their paddles offer hardly any noticeable peculiarities, save perhaps the 

 absence of the cross-like appendage at the end of the handle which is 

 common among maritime tribes. This is explained by the different 

 manner of handling the implement. While the Coast Indian when 

 paddling seems to divide his strength between propelling forward with the 

 left hand and pulling backward with the right, the edge of the wooden 

 canoe being made to serve as a partial fulcrum for the lever in his hands, 

 the Carrier, who unconsciously labours under the illusion that he is still 

 manning a frail birch bark canoe, does all his paddling away from his 

 dug-out without ever touching its sides. This exercise necessitates the 

 peculiarly long shaft of his paddle and renders useless the cross-end of 

 the maritime implement. The aforesaid illusion is so patent 

 that even while at the helm, he scarcely ever uses his paddle 

 as a rudder to steer his craft. He prefers to paddle out alter- 

 nately to the right and to the left, thereby communicating to 

 the canoe a kind of zig-zag course. 



To return to the description of technological items. In fig. 

 104 we have an industrial implement whose destination cannot 

 be guessed, inasmuch as its form is rather misleading. It is 

 not an oar, but a -ah-tcds. This compound word, when under- 

 I stood, prevents the possibility of any misconception as to the 



I use of the object thereby determined. 'Ah is the Carrier word 



for a species of fern whose bulbous root our aborigines greatly 

 relish, and tcd's means "paddle," and by extension any paddle- 

 shaped object. Hence this implement is designed to dig out 

 the esculent root of the fern -a!:. Yet, in spite of its name, it 



Fig. 104. 



See my paper in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Sect. II. 1892, p. 109- 



126. 



