1892-93.] 



NOTES ON THK WKSTERN DENES. 



149 



required to start a fire with the fire drill or more recently with the fire 



steel. Its elliptical form was probably intended 

 as a help in guarding its contents against rain or 

 moisture. As an additional measure of precau- 

 tion, the pouch was generally carried under the 

 arm pit suspended from the neck. 



Its modern substitute is of common cloth in 

 the form of a flour sack and with two strings 

 so arranged at its mouth that the pouch can be 

 shut by drawing them apart. Matches and 

 tobacco with a pocket knife are generally the 

 only things kept in this Kwanzaz. 



Fig. 138. 



Fig. 138 represents a needle and thread pouch. 

 Although originally of tanned skin it is now 

 almost exclusively of black or blue cloth trim- 



med with ribbons or coloured tape. 



To complete our list of skin objects of Dene manufacture, we should 

 add to the above the pe-sta (wherein one sits), a sort of cuirass in use in 

 prehistoric times especially among the Carriers. It had the form of a 

 sleeveless tunic falling to the knees, so that it protected the whole 

 body, since those aborigines generally shot kneeling. Its material 

 was moose skin which, when sewn according to the proper pattern, 

 was soaked in water, then repeatedly rubbed on the sandy shores 

 of a stream or lake and dried with the sand and small pebbles adhering 

 thereto, after which it was thoroughly coated with sturgeon glue. Being 

 again subjected before drying to another rubbing over sand, it received 

 a new coating of glue, and after this process had been repeated three or 

 four times, it formed an armour perfectly arrow proof* 



* In his Appendice rehtif aux amies de pierre des Indienn arctiques published in 1875, the 

 Abbe E. Petitot, speaking of the Denes of the Mackenzie Basin, says that "ces Indiens 

 arctiques pretendent qu'ils n' out pas toujours habite sur le sol oil nous les avous trouves, mais 

 qu'ils ont vecu, k une epoque fort eloignee, dans une patrie plus belle que la presente. . . . 

 Dans cette terre . . . bien tour dans I'occident, un peuple puissant oppriniait Jes Loucheux 

 et les Peaux-de-lievre. Ce peuple se rasait la tete, portait de faux cheveux et se coiffait de 

 casques. . . . Ses guerriers se couvraicnt la poitrine d' une tunique de peau d' elan revetue 

 d'une foule de petits cailloux coaguies en maniere d' ecailies (cuirasse) ; ce qui les rendait comme 

 invulnerables i leurs traits. ... A cette epoque les Dene-Dindjies faisaient, disaient-ils, 

 usage de lances, qu' ils m' ont depeintes comme des couteaux fixes par une ligature au bout d' 

 une perche ; d'epieux, sorte de comes munies d' un crochet et egalement emmanch6es ; d' 

 arbaletes ; de dagues, et enfin de boucliers." Then the learned missionary adds that " attame de 

 ces amies offensives et defensives. . . . n'a siiivi les Dene-Dindjies en Ameri(/tie." The 

 italics are mine, and it is hardly necessary to remark that the line thus pointed out would never 

 have been written had its author been acquainted with the original Carrier sociology. For, as 



