184 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITITE. [VOL. V' 



lazy, without skill or any artistic disposition. Is it so with the Navajos ? 

 Even among our Carriers, the proudest and most progressive of all the 

 Western tribes, hardly any summer passes off but some party runs home 

 panic stricken, and why? They have heard at some little distance, 

 some ' men of the woods,' evidently animated by murderous designs, and 

 have barely escaped with their lives. Thereupon great commotion and 

 tumult in the camp. Immediately everybody is charitably warned not 

 to venture alone in the forest, and after sunset every door is carefully 

 locked against any possible intruder. Compare these puerile feats of 

 the Carriers with the indomitable spirit, the warlike disposition of the 

 'terrible Apache." Compare also, the rude, inartistic implements, the 

 primitive industries of the same tribes, with the products of the Navajo 

 ingenuity, their celebrated blankets and exquisite silvervvork especially 

 — and tell me if, in this case, psychology is a safe criterion of ethnologic 

 certitude. A noteworthy quality of the Northern Denes, especially of 

 such as have remained untouched by modern civilization, is their great 

 honesty. Among the Tse'kehne, a trader will sometimes go on a trap- 

 ping expedition leaving his store unlocked without fear of any of its 

 contents going amiss. Meanwhile, a native may call in his absence, help 

 himself to as much powder and shot, or any other item, as he may need ; 

 but he will never fail to leave there an exact equivalent in furs. Now, 

 compare this naive honesty with the moral code in vogue among the 

 Apaches. Read also what is said of the Lipans, another offshoot of the 

 Dene stock ; they "live in the Santa Rosa mountains, from which they 

 stroll about, making inroads in the vicinity to steal horses and cattle." 

 While on this subject our author may be again quoted : " Intoxicating 

 liquors unscrupulously proffered them have demoralized the unfortunate 

 natives, while immoral relations between their women and the whites 

 have engendered maladies previously unknown and which have deprived 

 the former of that fecundity which was formerly their pride." 



Martin Sauer has referred to the food of the Tungus in dried fish, 

 berries, etc., and to the boxes on trees or poles in which they kept 

 supplies of it. Father Morice says : " The staple food of the Western 

 Denes, before the introduction of civilization and its concomitants, may 

 be described under three heads, fish, meat and berries, to which 

 correspond the co-relative pursuits of fishing, hunting and collecting." 

 He describes at length the curing of fish and the drying of berries, and, 

 in his Notes on the Western Denes, he furnishes an illustration of the 

 tsa-tcen or provision store of the Carriers, in which " is stowed away the 

 dried salrnon, which is the daily bread of both Carrier and Tsilkohtin. 

 He thus describes it : " It consists of two parallel frames planted upright 



