182 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTI lUTE. [VOL. IV. 



from some other cause — wore it full leni^th and parted in the middle- 

 Clipping the hair was a token of extreme grief or the badge of forced 

 servitude. 



Small tattoo marks will also be observed in the above figure, and not 



without reason. For tattooing was formerly- 

 very prevalent among the Western Denes. This 

 was not, as among the neighbouring hetero- 

 geneous tribes, confined to the chest or the arms 

 and legs, but it extended in every case to the 

 face as well. Various designs were thus indelibly 

 stamped ; but the face tattooing consisted more 

 generally of lines, single or parallel, radiating 

 from the mouth corners, on the chin, the cheeks, 

 the forehead and occasionally, the temples. Fig. 

 173 represents an extreme case. Two women of 

 '^* ^^^" this place — Stuart's Lake — are thus tattooed. 



Face tattooing had nothing to do with the totem crest, personal or 



gentile, of the bearer. 



When figures were attempted, they consisted of crosses, fishes, birds, fern 

 root diggers, etc., in conventional outlines, all of which will be delineated 

 when I come to treat of the Den6 pictography. 



The breast was also tattooed, but not so commonly as among the 

 Coast tribes. The figures marked thereon had generally a totemic 

 significance, A much coveted tattoo was the symbol of the grizzly bear 

 (fig. 195) the marking of which cost many a ceremonial banquet and 

 entitled the person thus honoured to exceptional regard. 



The forearms, inwardly and outwardly, were more often the seat of 

 tattoo marks. When there situated, these referred as a rule to a personal 

 totemic animal revealed in dream, and the bearing of whose symbol was 

 .supposed to create a reciprocal sympathy and a sort of kinship between 

 the totem and the tattooed individual. Sometimes these marks on the 

 arms and legs were intended as a specific against premature weakness of 

 these limbs. In this case, they simply consisted of one or two transversal 

 lines on the forearms or immediately above the ankles which were 

 tattooed on the young man by a pubescent girl. These had about the 

 same significance as the sinew and down wristlets of which mention has 

 already been made. 



Tattooing was performed, as among other American tribes, by 

 puncturing the skin with fine bone (or later steel) needles, and by passing 

 underneath a sinew thread coated with crushed charcoal or soot. 



