399 
The geographical position of tlie Kaska, however, near the 
headwaters of tlie Stikine river, exposed them to influences coming 
from the Pacific coast. They learned to weave the hair of the wild 
mountain goat into ropes, game bags, and even robes ornamented 
with blue and green designs. From the Tahltan and Tlinkit they 
adopted cremation, later superseded by burial in the ground; and 
they copied the organization of the same two tribes just as their 
Sekani neighbours to the south copied the organization of the Carrier 
and Tsimshian. So they alined themselves into two exogamous 
phratries, Kaven and \V{)lf, that reckoned descent through the female 
line alone, cremated each otlier's dead, and held reciprocal potlatches. 
Vet this ])hratric system never gained a very firm hold among them, 
and disap]ieared entirely before the end of the nineteenth century. 
It persisted a few years ago among the new band in the Pelly River 
district, but at no time has it affected the Goat Indians on the Beaver 
and South Nahanni. 
Mooney estimated the pre-European Nahani population at 
1.500;^ to-day it is probably less than half that figure. 
KUTCHIN- 
ITe Kutchin or Loucheux group of tribes'^ inhabited the basin of 
the Peel river from its source to its junction with the Mackenzie, 
and the entire basin of the Yukon from the mouth of the Pelly 
river downward, except for a small strip of country around its delta 
at Bering sea. There were several distinct tribes within this area, 
some of them divided into bands; but the lists given by different 
autliors by no jneans agree, band names being often confused with 
tribal names.'^ The dress and customs of the Kutchin in what is 
now Canadian territory varied but little, and the traveller would 
have encountered no marked change in the dialect until he reached 
Fort Yukon within the boundaries of Alaska. The Hare Indians 
of the lower Mackenzie could understand the speech of the Peel 
River Kutchin, but it was only partly intelligible to the more 
distant ('hipewyan. 
1 Mooney: Op. rit. , p. 26. 
-.''jure tills was written I have roine to the eone.ii.sion Hint it ■.-.•ould li:t\'e Imsmi preferahle to iiielntle 
tlie Kntehin among the Cordillera tribes rather tlian among those of the Mackenzie basin. 
•iKytchitt. “ pPople,” is the tipiivalcnt of the word tiene or finite by which the tribes of the 
Mackenzie River basin designate fhemseives. The name Louchetix, “ stjuint -e\'od,” i.e., slant-eyed, 
eame from the early French-Cairidian v'oyagetirs, and strictly applies only to the eastern tribes, those 
living on the Peel and Poreninne rivers, sotne of whonr frctittenled also the lower Mackenzie. 
4 Scane writers have included among the Kulchii' the vaitished hands or trilies of tlic Peil.v Ri\er 
basin, and even tiie Xahani at the liead of the Keeie river. 
