50 
sary as long as they lacked firearms, for tlie natural increase of each 
species more than balanced the destruction wrought by spears and 
arrows. The Indians were not improvident, however, for every tribe 
carefully dried during the summer months all the meat and fish that 
its migratory existence permitted it to conserve and to store away 
in safety.’ The natives were very skilful in making caches both 
2050(1 
Salmon caches of the Coast Salish Indians, Fraser river, B.C. (Photo hy 
R. Maynard.) 
on the ground and in trees; but it was almost impossible to construct 
a cache that was impregnable against the attacks of foxes, wolverines, 
and bears alike. Many an Indian family starved to death when the 
meat it had so carefully stored way in the summer fell booty to the 
crafty wolverine.- Pounding the dried meat into pemmican, as was 
done by most tribes, had obvious advantages; it gave them the same 
food, but in a compressed form easier to carry with them in their 
wanderings. The natives did not dry the meat and fish secured in 
1(7/ Works of SamiiH do Champlain; Op. fit., vol. ii, p. 45. Many Eskimo trihe.s dry 
away tlie hodii>s of all the trout and salmon they rapture diirinjr the summer, and dine on 
and store 
the heads 
only The dog.s live miserably at this season on bones anrl broth. 
^2 The writer has helt>ed to buo’ thiw caribou carcas.ses under stotie.s that two mrn could hardly 
lift'aiid suice even these could be dislodged by a wolverine, they were covered with a thick layer 
of snow that was converted into solid ice by the addition ot water. Two weeks later a wolverine, 
unable to break through the ice, tunnelled under the cache and devoured all the meat, leaving only a 
few scraps of hide to show what we had buried. 
