326 NOTES ON THE TINNEH OR CHEPEWYAN INDIANS 



The men always cook. If a wife will not obey her husband she gets a good 

 beating. Children are generally well treated by their parents. 



They have no regular festivals, but when a man of consequence dies his 

 friends make a dance, as the whites call it, m his honor. A space some twenty 

 yards square is railed in, a fire lighted in the middle, and various games are 

 played, such as putting a pole across the fire, one party trying to push the 

 other to one end of the enclosure, or one takes a dressed deer-skin and runs 

 off with it ; the fellow, if he is nearly caught, drops the skin, when another 

 takes it and is chased by all the rest in his turn. At last the deer-skin is seized 

 by as many as can find room to take hold ; it is then cut up, each retaining the 

 piece in his hand. Sometimes bladders of grease are used instead of deer-skin. 

 Now and then they all gather in the enclosure, and, standing round the fence, 

 sing mournful songs and make speeches. This continues for ten or twelve days, 

 when the fence is thrown down, and the beads and other things provided by 

 the person making the dance are divided, each person receiving a present in 

 proportion to his rank ; but this present is not entirely gratis, for some months 

 afterwards the giver will come and say : " I gave you thirty ' made ' beaver ; 

 pay me fifteen and k-eep fifteen ;' which has to be done, of course. The same 

 way when a person dies, if he is a great man among them. Four men make 

 his grave, or, rather, either burn him or hang him up in a coffin. These four 

 are paid as follows : The first gets thirty, and pays ten made beaver ; the next 

 twenty-five, and pays ten ; the next fifteen, and pays fi^e ; the next twelve, 

 and pays • three. The coffin, when the body was to be buried that way, was 

 supported upon a stage, with a knife, bow and arrows, a flint fastened to a stick, 

 a stone to strike it on to make fire, and a piece of the fungus that grows on a 

 birch tree for tinder, with some touch-wood also. The body was dressed in the 

 best they had and painted, and was placed in the coffin with the various things 

 mentioned above. The men who made the grave or buried the corpse lived 

 apart for two moons. A man was put on the stage if he was well liked ; and 

 they used to burn them to keep the maggots from eating the corpse. 



There is no ceremony observed at marriage or birth. A man will sometimes 

 take a small girl ten or twelve years old for his wife ; but this is merely a pre- 

 caution to secure her, as she cannot live with him as a wife at that age. A man 

 may take a wife of the same band to which he himself belongs ; but if he take 

 a wife from another tribe, the children belong to the tribe of their mother. 



A woman must live apart from her husband during her monthly terms. They 

 are in the same lodge, but a partition made of willow is between them. A 

 young woman must live entirely apart in a separate lodge during her first two 

 terms, or she will spoil the hunting of the men. All the Kutchin are divided 

 into three castes, called, respectively, Tchit-che-ah, Tenge-rat-sey, and Nat- 

 sah-i. It used to be customary for a man belonging to one of these castes to 

 take a wife from one of the others, but this has fallen into disuse. 



With the Kutchin the father takes his name from his son or daugliter, not 

 the son from his father, as with us. The father's name is formed by the addi- 

 tion of the word tee to the end of the son's name ; for instance', Que-ech-et may 

 have a son, and call him Sah-neu. The father is now called Sah-neu-tee, and 

 his former name of Que-ech-et is forgotten. They sometimes change a woman's 

 name from Toat-li to Sah-neu-behan, or Sah-neu's mother. 



War. — The murderers — it would be ridiculous to call them warriors — array 

 themselves in paint and put three eagle feathers in their hair. Before setting 

 out they join in a dance similar to the one for the dead ; but at the end of it the 

 men get into a line on one side and the women on the other ; the men then run 

 at the women, the latter lie down, the men jump over them, and the man who 

 falls will be killed in the fight. The dance over, the party set out, killing every- 

 thing they mec^t — foxes, crows, and every living thing — so that it may not give 

 notice of their approach. When they meet the enemy they pretend to be very 



