110 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN' INSTITUTE. 



Ecistem Tinneli. 



K'nai-a-klio-tana. 

 Ah-tena'. 



I^ehannees. 



Abba-to-tenali. 

 Acbeto-tJnueh. 

 Khun um-ah.' 



Carriers. 



" TakuUi." 

 Tsilkotinneh. 



Now, I daresay the learned Professor has been misinformed, inas- 

 Diuch as Dr. W. H. Dall's list, which he quotes and seems to adopt 

 is incorrect and incomplete. It is incorrect because, among other 

 things, it puts down the Tsilkotinneh (or more correctly Chilh^^otins) 

 as belonging to the iCariiers (Ta^^elh, not " TakuUi ") from whom 

 they are distinct. Moi-eover, those tribes noted under the title of 

 " Western Tinneh '"' have no existence but on paper. As for the Ne- 

 hannees, I suppose Dr. Dall means the Nah-anes ; but I strongly sus- 

 pect that the sev^en '■ Kut-chin " tribes, which he gives as specifically 

 different, are only so many sub-divisions of the same tribe, all of whom 

 speak the same dialect probably with local idiomatic peculiarities. 

 Indeed, their very name, not to speak of reliable authorities, would 

 lead me to form this opinion. " Kut-chin "^ is a verbal suffix which, 

 when in connection with a denominative name is expressive not of 

 ethnological variety, but of topographical location. Its appearance at 

 the end of certain words denotes that the aborigines who designate 

 themselves thereby are philologically, and thereby ethnographically, so 

 homogeneous as to preclude the })ossibility of their being classed as 

 different tribes of the same stock. '^ 



iThe " toh " pronounced with a peculiar smacking- of the tongue. To prevent typo!,'raphical 

 difficulties I shall avoid as much as possible the giving of aboriginal names in the course of 

 this mono^Taph. I am not acquainted with the system of Indian orthography suggested in a 

 volume of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, and even should I have it ready for refer 

 ence I doubt whether it would prove adequate to the accurate rendering of the multifarious 

 sounds of the Dene languages. 



^This suffi.ic varies with the different tribes Its equivalents on this (west) side of the Rocky 

 Mountains are tinijkwotinm Chilh^otin, ten axiA kwoten in Carrier, t-chene and kwo-tckenein 

 Sekenais. 



