THE PELLY RIVER 191 



tribe is called by different names by the adjacent tribes, 

 and Dr. Dawson proposes the name of Es-pat-o-ti-na. 

 By comparing numerous words of the Pelly Indians with 

 those in the vocabularies appended to Dr. Dawson's 

 report, I found them to correspond very closely, if 

 not exactly (most of them are the same) with those 

 of the Ti-tsho-ti-na tribe the western branch of the 

 Kaska. 



Two years before I arrived there, Tom Smith, a 

 trader, had established the post, which later was pur- 

 chased by Mr. Lewis, who named it Nahanni House. 

 Before the establishment of that post, the Indians had 

 traded through Indians of Liard Post on the Liard River, 

 and sometimes with the Indians attached to the trad- 

 ing-post at the mouth of the Big Salmon River on the 

 Lewes. Missionaries had never been among them, and 

 their contact with whites after the Pelly Banks Post was 

 abandoned in 1850, until Nahanni House was established, 

 was only incidental, as when individuals of the tribe had 

 met wandering prospectors. 



Owing to these facts more than anything else, they 

 were the healthiest and finest looking Indians I have ever 

 seen in the interior of the northern country. Most of 

 the men were fine specimens, and also the women, who 

 bore children abundantly and reared them in health and 

 vigor. They were all absolutely honest and lived a prim- 

 itive Indian life, except that after Nahanni House was 

 established, they used tents instead of the old brush 

 shelters. They wore white man's clothing, and utilized 

 the other novelties provided by the store. Up to that 



