1902-3.] The Nah'ane and their Language. 525 



Indians against whom they were believed to have exercised their black 

 art. 



As among the other Dene, such deaths were the cause of family 

 feuds of long duration and bitter hatred, when they did not lead to 

 reprisals and a series of murders. Thus would originate their inter- 

 necine wars, which consisted merely in ambuscades, surprises and 

 massacres, accompanied sometimes with the enslaving of the women and 

 the children. 



But their " wars" were more frequently directed against foreigners, 

 such as the Tsimpsian of the upper Skeena, or against the Tlhinket of 

 the coast. They had no war chiefs, or indeed any chief at all in our 

 sense of the word. 



In times of peace, their special avocation and means of subsistence 

 are hunting and fishing, to which a few of the younger men add packing 

 for the miners and the Hudson's Bay Company. x*\s their territory is so 

 extensive, it still abounds in fur-bearing animals and game of almost all 

 descriptions. I found moose especiallj^ plentiful all over the country. 

 The mountains are also rich in sheep and goats. 



No wonder then, if the Nah'ane are v/ell-to-do. In fact I consider 

 that the western part of the tribe is at present dying on a golden bed. 

 In the house of my hosts at the time of my visit were to be seen, 

 besides gilt bronze bedsteads and laces of all kinds, two sewing 

 machines, two large accordeons, and, will the reader believe it ? — a 

 phonograph ! All this in the forests of British Columbia, north of the 

 58th degree of latitude ! 



Since I have mentioned death, I may remark that cremation was, 

 until recently, the mode adopted by the western Nah'ane to dispose of 

 their dead. And, in this connection, we have a ludicrous admixture of 

 the new order of things with the olden ways, in the small travelling 

 trunks bought from the whites, which are to be seen planted on two 

 posts, in several places along the trails, and which contain some of the 

 bones of the dead picked up from among the ashes of the funeral pile. 



II. 



As to the language of the Nah'ane, much might be said. I shall 

 point out in the following pages only those particularities which are its 

 exclusive property, and leave out most of the general features which are 

 common to all the Dene dialects, and which the reader will find detailed 



