1892-93.] NOTES ON THE WESTERN DEN^S. 141 



therefore much feared. What his age was when he got the iron axe I 

 cannot say. He must have been a grown-up man and full-fledged 

 " nobleman," since tradition tells us that upon receiving it, he convoked a 

 large crowd of Indians of clans differing from his to a grand ceremonial 

 banquet. Now this can be done only by a taneza* or nobleman. On 

 that occasion, the iron adze-blade was suspended from a rafter over the 

 heads of the invited guests so that they might have an opportunity of 

 contemplating it at ease. The implement was considered exceedingly 

 precious. It had come from some unknown place in the direction of 

 Tse'tcah.* It was thereafter taken great care of, and its possession was 

 the means of considerably enhancing my grandfather's prestige among 

 his fellow Carriers. 



" Yet it was lost one day under the following circumstances. Some 

 men of Na'kwal's family were in the woods cutting spruce branches to 

 cover up the doorway of the winter lodge they were erecting, when the 

 skin line which fastened it to its handle as an adze getting loosened, the 

 blade suddenly dashed off and fell among the branches already cut. By 

 searching among these, the implement must have dropped down in the 

 snow, for it could never be found by natural means that winter." 



The story then proceeds to relate how it was subsequently found 

 through the incantations of a medicine man who was richly paid for his 

 trouble, and concludes thus : " This happened a very long time ago, long 

 before my forefathers had heard of the whites." 



That, this is a fact is shown by a few words attributed to Na'kw9l 

 which, though still intelligible, are nevertheless quite archaic, and also 

 by the following genealogy of Na'kwal's posterity. 



1. Na'kwyl must have lived at least two or three scores of years after 

 the acquisition of the iron axe, when he died and was succeeded in a 

 genealogical point of view by 



2. Tcitcanit, his youngest son, who had two wives and being of a jealous 

 disposition, was secretly drowned by them when in declining years. 



3. Tcitcanit was succeeded as tdneza' or nobleman by a maternal 

 nephew named Tsalekiijye. This personage killed a man with an iron 

 pointed lance, and was himself killed when he was getting much advanced 

 in years. 



* Near the Skeena river. See the map accompanying my paper, "Are the Carrier Sociology 

 and Mythology Indigenous," etc.? Trans. R. S. C, Sec. II., 1892. 



