376 
prosperously. I-^ut they do not thrive under tlie new conditions. They 
are wanting in initiative, like other Athapaskan peoples, anrl lack 
the capacity to strike out. each man for himself, without relying on 
the support and encouragement of his fellows. So. while a few of 
their women ai'e marrying white men and dropping out of their ranks, 
the tribe as a whole is declining. Its population in pre-Euro]:)ean 
times, although never estimated, must have been three or four times 
greater than it is to-day. The Department of Indian Affairs could 
register only 288 Tahltan at ITlegraph Creek in 1924. 
TAGiSH 
The Tagish^ lived north of the Tahltan, in the valleys of the 
upper Lewes river above its junction with the Teslintoo, and of the 
Teslin as far as Teslin lake. We know nothing of their history before 
the second half of the nineteenth century, when they numbered 
only seventy or eighty individuals and had built two rough wooden 
houses on the river connecting Marsh and Tagish lakes.- In their 
general mode of life, and in their hunting and travelling eciuipment, 
they seem to have closely resembled the Tahltan and other Athapas- 
kan tribes. Their language, however, was Tlinkit, so that originally 
they must either have been an offshoot of the coast people, who had 
adoj)ted the customs of tlie interior tribes, or an Athapaskan 
tribe that had given up its native tongue. The latter seems the 
more probable, even though elsewhere the Athapaskan peoples seem 
to have been more tenacious of their language than of anything 
else;*^ for the Tagish were completely dominated by the Tlinkit, 
who compellerl them to sei've as agents in purchasing furs from the 
jiatives on the Felly river. 
1 Mcriniiig uiiknowi!. 
2 Dawson. G M-: "Report of an l-IxpiloiaTion iii (lio Yukon District., X.W.T., anil Adjnfent 
NorllH'i-n Portion of Rritisls Colnnibia ” ; Ann. Rept., Gcol. :uul N’at. Hist. Snrv., GiiKuhi. ISS7, pt. B, 
p. 204 (Montreal, 1SS8). 
2 e.'r.i the .Sareee. 
