124 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SURVEY IN ALASKA [ETH. ANN. 46 



Hudson Bay Co. Dall says that it has long been noted on the 

 old maps of Russian America, under the name of the River of 

 the Mountain Men, while the Hudson Bay men called it the Gens- 

 des-Buttes River. (Alaska and Its Resources, 281-282.) Dall 

 mapped the junction of the river with the Yukon. The first who 

 descended a part of its course were two traders, Harper and Bates, 

 who reached the river higher up, sometime in the late seventies. 

 The name of Harper is preserved by having been given to the 

 big bend of the stream, 12 miles above its mouth. Its scientific 

 exploration begins only in 1885, with the passage down nearly its 

 entire length of Lieut. Henry T. Allen, United States Army; 5 the 

 main work concerning the geography and geology of the river being 

 done in 1898 by A. H. Brooks. 6 



POPULATION 



The native population of the Tanana has always been remarkably 

 scarce. Dall obtained an estimate of their whole number as about 150 

 families.' Petrof, in 1880, thought they numbered perhaps seven 

 or eight hundred ; s Allen in 1885 estimated them at between 550 and 

 GOO; 9 Brooks, in 1898, thought there were less than 400; 10 and the 

 1910 United States Census gives the total number of the " Tenan- 

 kutchin," full bloods and mix bloods, as 415. 11 



According to Brooks (Reconnaissance, 490-491), the Tanana na- 

 tives were separated into two geographic contingents, the eastern or 

 highland and the northwestern or lowland groups. The most east- 

 erly group included the Indian settlements in the vicinity of Forty- 

 mile and Mentasta Pass trail; the northwestern comprises to-day 

 those from Nenana to the mouth of the river. 



The Tanana Indians were generally regarded by other natives 

 as warlike and dangerous, but so far as their relation with the whites 

 was concerned there was little justification for this notion. 1 - Physi- 

 cally they were reported by Brooks to " average rather better than 

 the Indians of the Yukon" (Reconnaissance, 492). There are but 

 a few and scanty other references to them in this connection. 



Allen, Henry T., Military Reconnaissance in Alaska. Comp. Narr. Expl. Alas.. 415-416. 

 446-452. 



Brooks, A. H., Reconnaissance in the Tanana and White River Basins. Twentieth 

 Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Surv., Washington, 1900, pt. vn, 437^138 ; also the Geog. and Geol. 

 Alas., U. S. Geol. Surv. Doc. 201, 1906. 



"'Their numbers are supposed not to exceed 150 families." Alaska and Its Resources, 

 p. 108. 



"Notes Alas. Ethn.. 161. 



» Brooks, op. cit., 493. 



10 Brooks, op. cit., 493. 



11 Population, in, 1137. 



12 See Castner, J. C, A Story of Hardship and Suffering in Alaska : Comp. Narr. Expl 

 Alaska, 686-709. 



