524 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [Vol. V'II. 



a majority of the Cassiar miners have shown themselves to be, it is 

 difficult for me to imagine for a moment, for instance, the Tse'kehne 

 tribe sunk to the low moral level of the present Nah'ane whom I have 

 met or have been told about. 



While the eastern Nah'ane lead the simple patriarchal life of the 

 Tse'kehne, with hardly any sign of a social organization, their western 

 congeners, with the remarkable adaptiveness proper to the Dene race, 

 have adopted practically all the customs and some of the mythology of 

 their heterogeneous neighbours on the sea coast. Thus it is that matriar- 

 chate or mother-right is their fundamental law governing and regulating 

 all inheritances to rank or property. 



Though they have no totem poles, they know of the gentes, which 

 at Thalthan are those of the Birds and of the Bears. Each of these have 

 several headmen or tene-thie (the equivalent of the Carrier tceneza), who 

 alone own the hunting grounds, and on festival occasions, such as dances 

 or potlatching, are granted special consideration. These ceremonial 

 banquets are much in vogue, and as a result, almost every house in 

 Thalhthan is now crowded with a quantity of trunks containing goods 

 publicly received or to be likewise given away. 



Those houses are now of rough unhewn logs, with stoves instead of 

 fire-places. But the tribe's residences were originally much less 

 elaborate, and consisted of brush shelters, sometimes with low walls 

 made of long, slender poles. Therein they dwell, generally several 

 related families together. 



Marriage was never accompanied with any ceremony or formality. 

 It seems to have been based principally on the bestowing of furs or 

 other goods on the parents of the prospective bride. 



Polygamy was known everywhere, but it is now practically abolished, 

 the only exceptions being a very few cases among the present Kaska. 

 As to divorce, it is obtained without any formality, and is often enough 

 resorted to. 



Shamanism was originally the only form of worship common to the 

 whole tribe, and in the east witchcraft, and the social disturbances it 

 entails seem even now quite prevalent. The Kaska boy I have already 

 mentioned as a companion on part of my trip from Thalhthan was just 

 being taken away from revengeful fellow-tribesmen who had already 

 done to death two of his brothers under the plea that their parents were 

 responsible for the sickness and ultimate death of some Indian or 



