Quadrupeds. 7989 



Mammalia, the Quadrumana, should cease to be represented in 

 Europe. 



Alfred Charles Smith. 



Yatesbury Rectory, Calne, 

 March 11, 1862. 



Economic Uses of Canadian Suckling Animals among the 

 Chipewyan Indians. By B. R. Ross, Esq.* 



While collecting and arranging a series of specimens of the indus- 

 trial arts of the natives of Mackenzie's River District, for the Royal 

 Industrial Museum of Edinburgh, I was struck, not only with their 

 number, but also with their importance to the domestic comfort of 

 these races. 



Though doubtless much of the skill of the Chipewyan tribes has 

 been lost since the period of Sir Alexander Mackenzie's visit, by 

 the introduction of European manufactures, enough yet remains 

 to prove interesting as exhibiting the arts and manufactures of a 

 people still in the first stages of social existence and civilization. 

 The manufactures are in themselves rude, and, with the exception 

 of porcupine work, I know of none that would obtain the name of 

 Art, or win in a Museum the meed of more than a passing glance 

 from any one save an ethnologist. To the unreflecting, or to 

 those who for mere pleasure visit these " repositories of science," they 

 must indeed be caviare, but to the philosophic mind they would speak 

 volumes, as showing the human intellect, though in its lowest stages, 

 attempting, not unsuccessfully, to break through the surrounding crust 

 of animalism, and struggling to emerge into a sphere of higher intel- 

 ligence. 



In the present sketch I entirely exclude the Eskimos and Loucheux, 

 — though recent researches almost confirm me in the opinion that the 

 latter tribe is a branch of the Chipewyan family, — as it would swell 

 the paper much beyond the limits to which I have restricted myself 

 to pass their handicrafts also in review. 



The Chipewyan tribes, including the Montaignais, Yellowknives, 

 Beavers, Dog-ribs, Slaves, Sickannies, Nehaunies and Hare Indians, 

 draw their resources from the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms; 

 but I must at present restrict myself to the first of these great sections, 



* From the 'Canadian Naturalist' for December, 1861. 



