119 
kind, was the biological family, the man, his wife, and their children. 
Such units, often enlarged to include near kinsmen, could be found 
from one side of Canada to the other, dwelling in a bark wigwam 
in the eastern woodlands, in a skin tipi on the plains, in a snow 
hut along the frozen Arctic coast, and in a small partition within 
the huge communal wooden house on the shores of the Pacific ocean. 
Pamilies of near kinsmen naturally kept together for mutual support, 
and among the migratory tribes in the east and north, where fish 
and game were seasonal and often scattered, they grouped them- 
selves into small bands that roamed over separate territories and 
remained apart during the greater portion of the year, but usually 
amalgamated for a brief interval at certain seasons. Amalgamation 
37026 
Winter migration of an Eskimo community, Coronation gulf. (Photo hy D. Jenness.) 
was most frequent on the prairies, where the driving of the buffalo 
herds into pounds required the co-operation of many people; but 
there other groupings, similar in many ways to our fraternities, cut 
across the groupings by bands, at least in historical times. In 
Ontario, and on the Pacific coast, where the food supply was more 
stable and assured, families of near kindred still tended to hold 
together, but in those regions they were greatly overshadowed by 
larger social units, the village community, the clan, and the phratry, 
which will be considered later. 
Let us trace first the organization of the simpler tribes, the 
Algonkians of the eastern woodlands, the Athapaskans of the 
Mackenzie basin, and the Eskimo along the Arctic and sub-Arctic 
coast. The vagaries of the food supply in these regions caused fre- 
86959—9 
