52 
ANTHROPOLOGY: C. WISSLER 
bison overlapped in the Saskatchewan and Mackenzie Basins. Through- 
out this extensive territory the Indians were more or less completely 
dependent upon the caribou for food and clothing. Even the Eskimo 
hunted them in summer and made their winter clothing of their skins. 
Naturally, the material hfe of the Indians, and to a large extent that 
of the Eskimo, was adjusted to the necessities of a caribou hunter's 
career. For this reason, we speak of the culture of these Indians as 
the caribou culture. Some of the traits of this culture are: the use of 
birch and other bark for canoes, vessels, etc., the toboggan and the 
snowshoes, dog traction, the general use of snares for taking game 
both large and small, the high development of the net, the soft moc- 
casin and the hooded coat, special methods of dressing and smoking 
skins, and the more or less exclusive use of a tipi-hke shelter. 
2. The Relation of Caribou Culture to Bison Culture. The Indian 
tribes formerly occupying the plains and prairies in the interior of 
North America constitute a highly individualized cultural group. They 
were almost entirely dependent upon the bison. As we have just 
noted, the bison and caribou areas overlapped, the ranging habits of 
the two animals have certain similarities; thus they move in great 
herds, and in the open country, and may be captured en masse by being 
driven into pounds or other enclosures. Our main problem is the 
analytic comparison of these two cultures with a view to determining 
their possible historical connection. 
{a) Bison and Caribou Drives. From Alaska to Greenland the methods 
of driving herds of caribou in pens, snares, or between the Hues of hunters 
are in general the same. The last method is rarely used in winter, while 
the former is almost exclusively a winter method. Long Hues of poles 
are set up in the snow to drive the running caribou, which show a 
tendency to run along such lines, but men and women may be placed 
behind screens to turn the leaders in case of need. By long converging 
hues a herd may be run over a bank into an enclosure, into snares, or 
on to thin ice. In a precisely similar manner the Indians of the plains 
impounded buffalo in winter and occasionally in summer. From the 
detailed accounts, it is clear that even many minutiae of manipulation 
are the same for the bison and caribou. Another point is that the 
farther north one goes among the plains Indians the more highly devel- 
oped was the method of impounding, and according to early literature 
the Cree were the most skillful. Now it so happens that the Cree living 
in the forests and tundras are also skillful in driving the caribou, giving 
us the probable connecting link. 
