NOTES ON THE TINNEH OR CHEPEWYAN INDIANS 

 OF BRITISH AND RUSSIAN AMERICA. 



1. Tlie Eastern Tinneh, from a MS., by BERNARD R. Eoss, Esq., honorable Hudson's 

 Bay Company. 



2. The Loucheux Indians, by William L. Hardisty, Esq., honorable Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany. 



3. The Kutchin tribes, by Strachan Jones, Esq., honorable Hudson's Bay Company. 



COMMUNICATED BY GEORGE GIBBS. 



The above tribes are embraced in the Athabascan group in ]\Ir. Gallatin's 

 classification of the Indian tribes, (Trans. Am. Eth. Soc, vol. ii,) but that name, 

 according to Mr. Ross, is a foreign word, applicable only to a particular locality. 

 The name of Chepeivyan, given to the eastern tribes by most of the early writers, 

 is merely a compound Cree word relating to dress. Sir John Richardson (Boat 

 Voyage through Rupert's Land) adopts, and upon a more correct and philosophical 

 principle, the name Tin-neh, which Mr. Ross says, though given in the vocabu- 

 laries for "man," means rather "the people." It seems to be the appellation 

 which each tribe applies to itself, other branches being distinguished by a prefix 

 relating to locality, or some peculiarity of dress or appearance. Thus, while 

 the Chepewyans call themselves Tin-neh, they call the " Slaves" Tess-cho-tin- 

 neh, or the people of the Great river, (Mackenzie's.) 



This family, the most northern in America excepting the Eskimo, is, at the 

 same time, the most widely distributed, its range extending from the shores of 

 Hudson's bay to the Pacific, where it is represented on Cook's inlet by the Kenai 

 and other allied tribes. Several tribes, known collectively as the Tahkali, 

 Tacully, or Carriers, inhabit the upper waters of Eraser river, extending south 

 to Fort Alexandria, in about latitude 52° 30'. Near the mouth of the Columbia 

 two small bands, now nearly extinct, inhabited the wooded country on either side 

 of the river, and others are located on the Unipqua, Rogue river, and the coast 

 of southern Oregon, and on the Trinity or south fork of the Klamath, in northern 

 California. Finally, the same race, as shown by affinity of language, appears in 

 Arizona, New Mexico, and Chihuahua, under the names of Navajoes and Apaches. 

 The papers mentioned at the head of this article, and which follow, all refer to 

 the northern branches, but do not include those of 'he Pacific coast. 



Mr. Ross divides the northern portion of this great family into — 



I. The eastern or Tinneh tribes proper. 



II. The mountain tribes. 



III. The western, consisting, so far as British America is concerned, of the 

 Tahkalis. 



IV. The northern, including all the Kutchin or Loucheux tribes. 



It is to ttie first of these that the portion of his own notes here given refers. 

 Mr. Hardisty's and Mr. Jones's relate to the last. 



