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iodgin^ the majority of the natives used lean-tos of jwles laid closely 
together, roofcvl with bark, and packed with boughs and eartli around 
the bottom; the more prosperous slung moosehides over a pole after 
the manner of a fly. Almost equally crude aiul comfortless were 
their permanent dwellings, erected in places to which they returned 
year after year; for at fishing sites they slept and dried their salmon 
in miserable bark-roofed huts with vertical walls, and elsewhere 
erected only double lean-tos, or A-shaped huts, long enough at times 
to shelter several families. In their principal village, on the Tahltan 
river, each of tlie six clans in the t)'ibe owned a house of the latter 
type, 100 or more feet in length, that sheltered all the principal 
families of the clan, and piovided a hall for potlatches and dances. 
With two of their neighbours, the Taku branch of the Tlinkit, 
and the Nass River branch of the Tsimshian, the Tahltan had many 
petty wars that did not cease until the middle of the nineteenth 
century. Their weapons were bows and arrows, knives, and spears, 
occasionally also antler picks mounted on woorlen handles; and for 
armour they wore cuirasses and lielmets of thick goat skin. Like the 
plains’ Indians they carried off the scalps of slain enemies, and held 
a seal]) dance on their return home. Women captives became slaves 
unless they were ransomed by their kindred. To harden their bodies 
for the rigours of hunting anrl of war adult men up to the age of 
about forty used to whip each other’s backs with willow switches 
and plunge naked into a snowbank or an ice-laden stream. 
With two otiier neighbours, the Tlinkit at the moutli of the 
Stikine river and the Kaska of the Dease river, the Tahltan main- 
tained unbroken friendship. From the former they obtained oolakan 
and salmon oil, dentalium and abalone shells and ornaments made 
from them, paraphernalia for |)otlatches, stone axes, woven baskets, 
and, not least important, slaves of Salishan or Kwakiutl stock whom 
the Tlinkit had themselves purchased from the ITaida. In exchange 
they gave moose and caribou hides, sinew thread, babiche, leather 
bags, moccasins, and furs of various kinds, some of them purchased 
from the Kaska to whom they sold the treasures of the Tlinkit at 
about double price. One ornament of the coast tribes the Tahltan 
rejected, the labret, although the western Carrier had adopted it from 
the Tsimshian. 
