OF BRITISH AND RUSSIAN AMERICA. 



321 



Kutchiii, Nat-sit-Kutchin, this ornament consists of four Hiagua shells fastened 

 together, but among the Hong-Kutchin and other tribes a metal ring is used 

 sometimes instead. Making an incision in the under lip, or flattening the heads 

 of infants, are quite unknown among them. 



Food. — This consists for tlie most part of venison or fish, though they eat the 

 mountain sheep and goat, rabbits, partridges, wild fowl, and, in the winter, bears. 

 The bears are not often eaten in summer, as their flesh is not good at that time. 

 The country is full of game of all kinds ; moose abound in one part, deer iu 

 another. 



Dwellings. — These are movable, and are thus constructed : deer skins are 

 dressed with the hair on, and sewed together, forming two large rolls, which are 

 stretched over a frame of bent poles. The lodge is nearly elliptical, about twelve 

 or thirteen feet in diameter, and six feet high, very similar to a tea-cup turned 

 bottom upwards. The door is about four feet high, and is simply a deer skin, 

 fastened above and hanging down. The hole to allow the smoke to escape is 

 about four feet in diameter. Snow is heaped up outside the edges of the lodge, 

 and pine l)rash spread on the ground inside, the snow having been previously 

 shovelled off with snow-shoes. The fire is made in the middle of the lodge, and 

 one or more families, as the case may be, live on each side of tlie fire, every one 

 having his or lier own particular place. 



Elevation ot lint. 



Ground plan of hnr. 



Kutchin 



In travelling, the women haul the lodges, poles, rolls, blankets, kettles, &c., 

 upon wooden trunnions, something similar to the American sleigh, only the 

 runners are turned up behind as well as before, thus being equally fitted to move 

 backwards or for- 

 wards. When the 

 day 's journey is fin- 

 ished, the men put 

 up the hxiges ; but __ 

 when a lodge has 

 to be removed only 

 a few yards, the 



women do it. When a number of lodges are placed together, no regular form of 

 arrangement is observed, except that the doois are all turned one way, that is, to 

 the leeward. They have no lodges or buildings set apart for public purposes^ 

 though they certainly have an enclosed place for medicine dances, feasts, &c., 

 for the dead. 



Arts. — There is little to say upon this head. They have no pottery ; and their 

 only vessels were constructed of bark, wood, matting, or sheep horns. The birch 

 bark vessels are usually square or oblong ; wooden ti'oughs are used as dishes, 

 and wooden or horn spoons are large enough to hold a pint. Thiy are never 

 made so small as a taljle-spoon. The kettles were, and still are made, by the 

 liong-Kutchiu at least, of tamarack roots woven together. These kettles are 

 very ne;it; hair and dyed porcuqine quills oje woven into them. The water la 



21 scr, 



