388 
Although the best known of all the noilliern Athapaskan tribes, 
the Chipewyan seem to have possessed tlie weakest culture, with the 
exception of their near relatives the Yellowknife. Some of their 
traits, indeed, they borrowed from theii’ neighbours. They tattooed 
iheir faces in the same wa.y as the Yellowknife and Jdogrib, with three 
()!■ four parallel bars across each cheek, ^ From the Yellowknife, 
])robably, they learned to use coj^per for hatchets, ice-chisels, awls, 
knives, and arrow- and s])ear-heads;- fi'om the Cree, perhaps, they 
acquired birch-bark vessels for boiling their food, since other tribes 
in the Mackenzie River basin used vessels of spruce bark or of woven 
S]>ruce roots. They had no feasts or ceremonies of their own except 
the performances of medicine-men, but they imitated the feasts and 
dances of the Cree. Women did not use cradle-boards or bags, but 
carried their babies on their backs after the manner of Eskimo 
women; and some of the men used the Eskimo double-bladed paddle. 
Art was confined to some very crude painting on wood, and a little 
work in porcupine-quill and moosehair that was much inferior to the 
work of tribes along the Mackenzie river. 
YELLOWKNIIE 
The Yellowknife hunted over the country northeast of Great 
Slave and Great Bear lakes, having the Chipewyan on their south- 
eastern border, Eskimo to the east and north, Hare Indians to the 
northwest, and Dogrib and Slave to the west.'^ In dialect, appear- 
ance, and customs they were har'dly distinguishable from the C’hipe- 
wyan,-^ but politically they ranked as an independent tribe. Both 
were typically erlge-of-the-woods peoi)le, living in skin-covered tipis 
and spending the summer on the barren grounds in pursuit of cai'ibou 
and musk-oxen. Both were weak in ceremonial life; the Chipewyan 
borrowed their songs and dances from the C’ree, the Yellowknife 
from the Dogrib. If the Chipewyan harassed and oppressed the 
1 ScR llfunie: Op. fit., p'. 209. M.ac-kc-nzie sny.^ “rum to four !?traiglit on their elireks or 
foi'elieafl-s” ; Op. cit,, p. cxx. 
- C<ii)pi'r iinptfini'iits have l>een tontid in nncient .‘itoim iion.scs on '\'i^fr^ria islanil, which certainh" 
(laic i>ack .several ceninrics, iliat tlio Yellowknife tlienisclves may ]ia\'o learned In u.se copjn'r froni 
the Kskimn, 
Early vvritcr.s treiierally call llmm Co|''pE’r Indians or Red Knive.s; alt three names, of fuiirse, T'cfer 
to their nse of coiiper instead of stone and bone. .'\cc'irding to Frankliir (.Tonnie\', ji. 2S7) the>- 
rlaiineri to Iiave lived orifrinally on the soulli side of Circat .Slave lake; if trnc, this must ha\e been 
liefore the eifihleenth renlurv, 
A trailiiioii, eurcdit anionK the YtOlowkiiife a.s late as 1914, averred that their dialect harl once 
been very' different from Cliipevvyan, but lliat they had adopted the Cliitnnvyan dialect anti custum.s 
before the arrir'al of Europenns. 
