LIFE ON A YUKON TRAIL 385 



the days of the old Cassiar gold excitement, live in comfortable 

 log rancheries near the water's edge. The unthrifty, owning 

 neither cabins nor ponies, live back in the brush in wickiups 

 or hovels of poverty. 



Social lines are strictly drawn. The ownership of a log cabin 

 marks class divisions. Another badge of distinction lay in the 

 possession of gaily beribboned straw hats. . These hats had been 

 taken into the country the previous autumn by the Hudson's 

 Bay Company. Any young buck who aspired to be anything 

 at all contrived to wear a straw hat last winter. Preference ran 

 to Princeton colors. The Klooches, or women of the tribe, had 

 a passion for ga} r -colored dress and were especially fond of 

 dancing. 



The family life of the Tahltans is of a low order. These people 

 have not emerged from a state of polyandry. Paternity being a 

 matter of doubt and maternity a matter of fact, the tracing of 

 relationship among them is confined rather closely to the female 

 line. Of course this has a direct influence upon property rights- 

 Among Indians of the same tribe of the Tahltan river the insti- 

 tution of mutter recht or mother-law is clearly defined. The chil- 

 dren of a marriage belong to the mother's family. It is said that 

 in rare cases a child is transferred to the father's side of the house 

 tli rough formal adoption for a brief period by the father's sister. 

 In the matter of inheritance it is the sister's son who takes 

 precedence over the wife as a man's natural heir, though when 

 a man dies his friends take over pretty much all his portable 

 propert} 7 . The wife, however, receives some compensation in 

 the distribution of presents at the next potlatch or memorial 

 festival, at which the deceased is honored. A trace of exogamy 

 and of marriage by capture still exists in the feigned pursuit of 

 a bride by the intended husband. The hostile demonstrations 

 against the captor made by the friends of the bride are signifi- 

 cant only of mock anger, being a relic of the archaic usage of 

 hurling real weapons in actual wrath at the retreating bride- 

 groom. Our own civilization has advanced a step farther. Rice 

 ninl old slippers are thrown at bridal couples without even the 

 affectation of wrath. 



One would expect from their crude ideas of marriage to find a 

 condition of club law or of lawlessness among the Tahltans. This 

 is not true. They have scrupulous respect for rights of person 

 and property. Of the many tons of food supply left unguarded 

 along the trail we did not hear of a single case of theft by hungry 



