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do not wander in herds; but they ran these animals down on snow- 
shoes in tlie spring, and snared them witli the help of dogs during 
the summer and winter. Snares served tliem for all animals except 
the beaver, which they captured in wooden traps in the autumn, 
and killed with spears and clubs in the winter, after breaking down 
the houses. Nearly half their diet c{)nsisted of fish, which were 
caught in nets of twisted willow bark, or with lines of the same 
material fitted with hooks of wood, bone, antler, or occasionally 
birds’ claws; but tlie moose and the caribou, with the smaller fur- 
bearing animals, provided them also with clothing, bags, and babiche 
for snares and lines. 
Their clothing was very similar to that of the l^eaver and 
Chipewyan, but more heavily bordered with fringes and with more 
ornamentation in moose-hair and porcuifine-quill. The moccasins 
were joined to the leggings; men wore a tassel instead of a breech- 
clotli; and, around the mouth of the Liard, where moose and caribou 
were less plentiful, the majority of the women had garments of 
woven hare-skin, a material they userl also for cradle-bags. Both 
sexes wore l)elts, bracelets, and armlets of leatlier embrohlered with 
})orcupine-(iuills. Men added necklets of polished caril)ou antler, 
and sometimes i)assed a goose-quill or a plug of wood through the 
septum of the nose. On the warpath they wore head-dresses of 
bear-claws, or caps with upstanding feathers, and protected their 
bodies witli wooden shields and cuirasses of willow twigs. 
In summer the Slave lived in conical lodges covered with brush 
or spruce bark, for only a few hunters could afford coverings of 
caribou hides. Generally two families pitched their lodges together, 
facing in opposite directions so that they would have a common 
entrance and a common fireplace in the middle. Their winter 
dwelling was a low, oblong cabin of poles with walls chinked with 
moss and a roof of spruce boughs. They used stone adzes hafted 
on wooden handles for cutting down trees, and knives with beaver- 
tooth blades for whittling wood and bone. Their clubs were of 
caribou antler, and their spears, daggers, and arrowheads had bone 
or antler points; but a few hunters used arrowheads of copper 
acquired from the Dogrib or Yellowknife, and of flint or chert 
obtained on the upper Liard, whence they also secured pyrites for 
making fire. Women cooked in vessels of woven spruce roots by 
