396 
tion has been estimated at 750’; to-day it ajiiiroximates the same 
figure, if we include a considerable number of hybrid Indians who 
make (li'cat Bear lake their centre. 
NAT I AX I 
Very little is known about the Xahani- Indians who inhabited 
the mountainous area between the upper Liai’d river and the 54th 
parallel north latitude. They were divided into several tribes, or 
inde])endejit bands, some of which have now disappeared. From 
about McDame creek, on Dease river, to the Beaver river that joins 
the Liard above Liard, dwelt the two bands of the Kaska^ Indians, 
the T sc. zoic fie, “ Mountain people,” on the west and tlie Titshoiina, 
“ Big water people,”^ on the east. In recent times the boundary 
line between these two bands has lain about the junction of the 
Kechika and Dease rivers. East and northeast of them, on the Beaver 
and South Nahanni rivers, were the Goat Indians {Esbataottiiie, often 
wrongly translated “Sheep Indians”), who included, or were closely 
allied to, a band at the headwaters of the Keele river; for the South 
Xahanni Indians used to cross over to the Keele and travel down that 
river to Xorman, on the Vlackenzie. The names of the tribes that 
formerly occupied the upper waters of the Big Salmon, Belly, Mac- 
Millan, and Stewart rivers are uncertain"’; but tradition states that 
about 1885 the original Belly and Boss River Indians were destroyed 
by a band that crossed the Rocky mountains from the Vlackenzie 
river — Mare Indians, probably, from the vicinity of Norman. One or 
two survivors found refuge with a portion of the Big Water l^and of 
the Kaska, who then moved northward and took possession of the 
Belly river. Other Indians from Teslin lake, and from the Yukon 
about Dawson, moved into the same vacant area, so that the band 
that to-day calls itself “ Belly River Indians ” is of recent and 
composite formation.^’ 
In their mode of life, and in most of their social customs and 
religious beliefs, the Kaska differed but little from the Sekani to the 
1 Mooney: Op. cit., p. 26. 
2 See Appendix A. 
3 A Tahlian word for which the Indians of Telegraph Creek give two interpretations: (1) rags 
wrapped round the feet in lieu of stockings, and (2) long moss hanging from a tree. 
^ i.e. the people who claimed possession of Frances lake. 
5 Cf. Dawson, G. M. : “Report on an Exploration in the Yukon District, N.W.T., and Adjacent 
Northern Portion of British Columbia”; Geol. and Nat. Hist. Surv., Canada, .\nn. Rept., 1887, 
pt. B, pp. 201-203 (Montreal, 1888). 
6 AIS. of Poole Field, National Museum of Canada. 
