THE WESTERN DENES. ] 09* 



THE WESTERN DENES— THEIR MANNERS AND 

 CUSTOMS. 



By the Rev. Father A. G. Morice, O.M.I. , Stuart's Lake, B.C. 



So far, very little and, to my knowledge, no reliable information 

 has ever been published concerning the ethnology and sociology of the 

 Indian tribes inhabiting that northern part of British Columbia 

 originally known as New Caledonia. It is not because they have been 

 altogether ignored by English-speaking ethnographers ; but for one 

 reason or another, whenever they are attended to in^scientific papers 

 it has never been with satisfactory accuracy. No later than four 

 years ago the Smithsonian Report contained a paper on Anthropology 

 by Otis T. Mason, wherein I found^ the following, purporting to be a 

 classification of the " Tinneh or Athabaskan "- tribes, includinf^ the- 

 Western Denes. 



Western Tinneh. 



Kai'-yuh-kho- ta'na. 

 Ko-yu'kukh-o-ta'-na. 

 Un'-a kho-ta'-na. 



Kul-chin Tribes. 



Ten'-an-kut-chin'. 



Tennuth-kut-chin'. 



Tat-sah'-kub-chin'. 



Kut-cha-ktit-chin'. 



Nahsit'-kub-chin'. 



Vunta'-kiib-chin'. 



Hai-an-kub-chin'. 



iFirst part of the Report, etc., for 1885, page 832. 



2At the risk of appearing unnecessarily fastidious may I be allowed to remark here that 

 either term, Tinneh or Athabaskan, seems ill chosen to designate that vast family of abori- 

 gines they are made to represent ? Athabascan is local and consequently should not be applied 

 to the whole stock, whilst Tinneh, if anything, does not mean what it is intended for. Indian 

 languages, especially that of the tribes in question, are exceedingly delicate, and a very lio-ht 

 phonetic shade, which the uninitiated will often fail to perceive, always changes the sense of 

 the word. Tinneh, which evidently stands here for Di-ne, " men " (the name most of the tribes 

 call themselves by) would rather remind a Western Dene of the berry of what is vulgarly called 

 " kinnikinik " (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) than of the genus homo ! Others give them the name- 

 of Tinne, calling them thereby " Four " persons). 



