28 



UN'A-KHO-TANA. 



= Uii'dkliotdiia, Dall 1. c, lueauing "Dislaut" or "Far-off people", a name apiilieJ to them by otlier 



Tinneb. 

 ^= Juntidchotdnd, Holinbcrg, Zagoskin. 

 ^ Ti'(l,oii'ikholdi:d, among themselves. 

 < Iidiliki^ Wiiniiau iu Tikhmenief. 

 f Iiikiiliichlmtcii, Wrangell in part. 



These people inhabit the Yukon fi'om the Sunku'kat l\iver to the 

 mouth of the Tananah' Eiver. They call themselves Yukonikhotana, men 

 of the Yukon, but so also do some of the Kutchin people living on the river 

 above the Tananah mouth, so I have preferred to keep the original term, 

 which is the name by which the Lowlanders call them, rather than risk 

 confusion by a change. They are few in number ; their principal village is 

 at the mouth of the Nowikakat River. Their houses are less solidly built 

 and less permanent than those of the Lowlanders. They seem to acknowl- 

 edge no totems ; rarely intermany with the Lowlanders, from Avhorn their 

 dialect differs slightly ; deposit their dead sometimes in an erect posture, the 

 sarcophagus looking like a roughly-made cask ; have no draught-dogs like the 

 tribes previously mentioned, but have a small breed for hunting ; and meet 

 on the neutral ground of Nu-kluk-ah-y6t' every spring to trade with the 

 Kutchin tribes from the Upper Yukon and Tananah. 



The three previously-mentioned tribes differ less among themselves 

 than they do from those which follow, and Ihave elsewhere designated them 

 as "Western Tinneh". The bodies of the dead are always placed by them 

 above ground in a box or wooden receptacle. They have no marriage- 

 ceremony ; take and discard wives at their pleasure ; have often more than 

 one, but rarely more than three wives ; practice shamanism, but have no 

 idea of any omnipotent or specially-exalted deity, though believing in a 

 multitude of spirits good and bad ; have similar festivals and songs, and a 

 tolerably uniform language. They are of tall and rather slender build, with 

 faces varying from square to oval ; their hue is an ashy olive, never cop- 

 pery ; their hair coarse, straight, and black. Those near the Innuit have, 

 in some places, adopted the fashion of wearing labrets, and the inland tribes 

 very commonly wear a nose-ornament. Tlieir noses are small but arpiilino, 

 ov rarely Roman. They vary in hairiness, but rarely have a beard, and 



