I50 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute [vol. 



must have been the last to cross into the American continent and have 

 kept most vivid the remembrance of such a passage. Here is what 

 Petitot writes by way of describing the dog-like enemies of the D6n6s 

 of old: 



"Les Loucheux nous les d^peignent comme tr^s vaillants mais 

 immoraux et allant presque nus. A la guerre ils portaient des casques 

 de bois, des boucliers en peau tres dure suspendus d I'^paule et un 

 vetement recouvert d'6cailles (cuirasses). Leurs armes, disaient-ils, 

 6taient des couteaux tranchants li6s au bout d'une perche (lances)".^ 



This description of the D6n6s' former enemies, in whom Petitot would 

 fain see a very distant nation, fits admirably the natives of northeastern 

 Asia, the inhabitants of the Fox and Aleutian Islands, and even the 

 Kollush or Tlingets of the Alaskan littoral. 



To the simple-minded and much more reserved D^n^s, all those 

 tribes are the very essence of immorality and lasciviousness. I have 

 myself time and again heard the Carriers characterize them as dogs, 

 and such travellers as saw them before they had adopted some of our 

 ways are at one in chronicling the entire lack of restraint of those people. 



Speaking of the Fox Islanders Coxe remarks that "they do not 

 observe any rules of decency, but follow all the calls of nature publicly 

 and without the least reserve. They wash themselves in their own 

 urine ".^ 



This last particular is also recorded of the Tchuktchis of Asia.^ 



As to the shaving of the head, G. Sarytchew says that the Aleutians 

 "cut the hair of the forepart of the head".* Of another tribe, whose 

 habitat is likewise between the two continents, the same traveller has 

 it that "they cut off all their hair, except one tuft on the crown".' 

 Coxe himself writes of the aborigines of Unalaska that "the men shave 

 with a sharp stone or knife the circumference and top of the head",* 

 while Shelekoff says of the "Konaeges" that among them "both men 

 and women cut [the hair] about the head".' 



With regard to the Danes' traditional enemies going "almost naked", 

 this is just as true of most of the Aleutians, Eskimos, Tlingets and 



1 Ibid. 



* "Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America", p. 175; London 

 1787. 



*S. Muller, "Voyages from Asia to America", p. XXVII. 



* "Account of a Voyage of Discovery to the North-East of Siberia", Vol. II, p. 9 

 London, 1806. 



* Ibid., ibid., p. 18. 



* Op. ciL, p. 176. See aJso p. 197. 



'"The Voyage of Gregory Shelekoflf, a Ruseian, from Okhotsk, on the Eastern 

 Ocean, to the Coast of America", p. 36. 



