1902-3.] The Nah'ane and their Language. 521 



Smith River) which falls into the Liard near this place, also up the 

 Upper Liard as far as Francess Lake."^ 



This statement would seem to dispose of Petitot's Bad-People or 

 Mauvais- Monde, a " very little known tribe," he says, " which used to 

 trade at the now abandoned Fort Halkett to the number of 500 or 400 

 souls."2 



Father Petitot furnishes us with our fourth division of the Nah'ane 

 when he states that " a little band of 300 Na'annes (Dene) roam over 

 the mountains of the MacKenzie. They are the Nathannas of Sir A. 

 Mackenzie. We can add thereto the Etaottines of the Good Hope 

 mountains, and the Espa-t'a-ottines of Fort des Liards in equal 

 number."'^ 



To the above certain divisions of the Nah'ane tribe, we should 

 perhaps add the Ts'Ets'aut, an offshoot of some inland Dene, whom Dr. 

 F. Boas discovered some years ago on Portland Inlet, on the Pacific 

 Coast, somewhat to the southwest of the Nah'ane proper. That Dr. 

 Boas would himself connect them with the Nah"ane tribe is apparent 

 from the statement that " Levi (his informant) named three closely 

 related tribes whose languages are different, though mutually intelligible ; 

 the Tahltan (Ta-tltan) of Stickeen and Iskoot Rivers, the Laq'uyip or 

 Naqkyina, of the headwaters of the Stickeen, and the Ts'Ets'aut."* 



This surmise is fully confirmed by Mr. MacKay, his annotator, 

 who states that those Indians "belong to the Kunana, a tribe which 

 inhabits the lower Stickine valley and whose headquarters are at 

 Tahltan."5 



But here scinduntur doctores. According to Dr. Boas this handful 

 of natives, which now consists of a mere dozen individuals, would have 

 numbered about 500 souls sixty years ago, while Mr. MacKay has quite 

 a different story to account for their separate existence as a tribe. He 

 relates that, not more than forty years ago,^ three or four families hailing 

 from Thalhthan in the course of their wanderings made for Chunah, on 

 the sea coast, but took a wrong direction and struck on the west shore 

 of Portland Channel, where they were practically forced to remain in a 



1 Notes, etc., p. lo. 



2 Mimoire ahrigi sur la Giogrphie de I' Athabaskmv-MacKeyizie^ p. 46. 



3 Ibid. ibid. 



4 Tenth Report, B.A.A.S., p. 34. 



5 Ibid. p. 38. 



6 It is now eight years since both statements were published. 



