78 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL VI. 
“ The classifications of Mr. Dall and Father Morice for the northern 
group are somewhat different, and that of the latter, who finds fault 
with Mr. Dall’s, is obscured by English names that are confusing and of 
very little scientific value.” This is from Mr. Campbell. With all due 
respect for my opponent’s opinion, how can English names in an English 
paper obscure a classification of races and confuse the mind of the 
English reader? Should they not, on the contrary, rather enlighten to 
a greater extent than so many would-be aboriginal words differently 
reproduced according to the linguistic ability of the traveller or the fancy 
of the transcriber? And how in the world are they of so “very little 
scientific value?” To be scientific, ought an Englishman to call the 
French /es Francais, the Italians glz [talzanz, the Spaniards los Espaiiols, 
the Greeks of “EAdqves, etc.?2 Everywhere words representing ethnic 
divisions follow the ‘particular genius of the idiom of the speaker, and 
it seems to me that this should more particularly be the case with the 
names of American tribes which are generally so difficult, when not 
altogether impossible, to spell without diacritical marks or other 
accessories found only in a few printing offices. When I write in 
English, the Indians nearest to me are the Carriers; should my essay 
be in French they become the Porteurs, but, of course, in all my native 
publications they remain the TaKejne. So it goes with the Montagnais ; 
they are Chippewayans to the English and Déné to themselves; with 
the Beavers, who are Castors to the French, Tsa’tenne to the Carriers, 
and Dané to themselves, etc. 
“ 
According to Prof. Campbell, I maintain that “the Kutchin tribes of 
Mr. Dall are, all but one, imaginary.” This is hardly the case. Of 
course I would not, even indirectly, accuse my opponent of misrepre- 
sentation ; yet his remark is somewhat misleading. It would seem to 
imply that, to the exclusion of all the others, one of Dall’s Kutchin 
tribes—which one ?—is real. I did say, and must repeat, that those of 
his tribes noted under the title of Western Tinneh “ have no existence 
but on paper.” But my remarks about the Kutchin are not so sweeping. 
I simply “strongly suspect that the seven Kut-chin tribes which he 
gives as specifically different, are only so many subdivisions of the same 
tribe, all of whom speak the same dialect, probably with local idiomatic 
peculiarities.” * Which remark does not exclude the possibility of Dall’s 
divisions of the Kutchin being real, though of a secondary importance. 
Father Petitot is quite proficient in the language of the Loucheux 
or Kutchin whom he has visited both east and west of the Rocky 
Mountains. Now he never mentioned but one tribe, and while in 
* The Western Dénés, Vol. vii., p. 119 
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