1892-93.] NOTES ON THE WESTERN D^NES. 197 



The tsa-tcan of the TsiiKoh'tin are not so elaborate, since they are 



nothing- else than small and very rude, though 

 solid, log huts built right on the ground (fig. 

 183) and, as a rule, quite a distance from the 

 regular village, while their Carrier counter- 

 parts are generally very close to the habita- 



Fig. 183. ^io"S- 



The Tse'kehne have nothing to do with salmon, and consequently 

 the need of provision stores is not so urgent among them. Yet when 

 they happen to be blessed with an abundance of dried meat and wish 

 to preserve it for future use they erect sorts of scaffoldings immediately 

 against the trunk of a tall tree which are to them the equivalent of the 

 Carrier tsa-tcsn. These consist of two long, heavy sticks crossed and 

 firmly bound to the trunk of the tree at their point of intersection, while 

 their ends are secured to some stout overhanging branch by means of 

 strong ropes. Rough boards or split sticks are then laid across this frame 

 which form a floor over which the meat or any other eatable is deposited, 

 carefully wrapped over with skins or spruce bark. Even the bear cannot 

 get at those caches without previously demolishing their floor, which is 

 practically impossible. 



The careful observer who would take a fancy to travelling along our 

 chief salmon streams could not fail to notice, in some spots immediately 

 over the banks, numerous excavations or pits which betray an artificial 

 origin. These are all that remain to-day of the salmon cellars of the 

 prehistoric Carriers. Aerial stores were then as now the regular family 

 larders ; but not unfrequently the natives of the old stock preferred to 

 cache down their fish in temporary cellars which had the advantage of 

 keeping it fresher than the common store-house. A matter of taste as 

 regards the salmon itself, this caching down in the ground became a 

 necessity relatively to its roe, which was buried, wrapped in spruce bark, 

 until it had reached an advanced stage of putrefaction, when it was 

 relished by the native palate as the ne plus ultra of delicacy. 



The last item more or less connected with aboriginal habitations is the 

 sweat-house or sweating-booth.* According to Dr. G. M. Dawson, this 

 usually consists, among the Shushwap, " of about a dozen thin willow 

 wands, planted in the ground at both ends. Half of them run at right 

 angles to the other half, and they are tied together at each intersection. 

 Over these a blanket or skin is usually spread, but I have also seen them 

 covered with earth. A small heap of hot stones is piled in the centre, 



Ts^-zjI, "stone-hot," a word of the third category. 



