families, a very mild foivm of servitude compared with the slavery 
of the Pacific coast. The Kutchin never purchased slaves, and 
never acquired any in their petty wars; for they massacred men, 
women, and children without mercy, sparing only some of the 
younger women to carry away for wives. Their own women received 
no gentle treatment; they performed nearly all the hard work in 
camp,^ transported all the family possessions, ate only after the 
men had eaten, and had no voice in family or tribal affairs except 
the one prerogative of selecting husbands for their daughters. 
Mothers often killed their girl babies to spare them the hardships 
7345.i 
A Kutcliiti ilaiKH'. ( Ri'iirotl iirril from Richftr<lnoii , Kir Jolni: "Arctic Krorcliiiitf 
Rxpcflitioii , /joiifloii^ JK51" rol. I, 1*1. J A .) 
they themselves had undergone; and old or infirm men and women 
who could no longer siqiport themselves were strangled, sometimes 
at their own recpiest. Vet life was not all hardshijis, even for tlie 
women. The Kutchin were passionately fond of games, and of 
singing and dancing; and young and old, women as well as men, 
took i)art in these diversions. 
1 Excfpt iIh' cookiiiij. A. H.; “ .Imitnal of (In? A'liUoii. l,St7-48"; oilitod liy L. J. Biirpoe, 
Piihlii-atioiiK of Iho (’aiKKliaii Anliivcs, No. 4, Ottawa. lOIO, i>. 80. Jones, .'^tiaflian ; “The Iviilchin 
Tribes, Nute.s on ihe J’inneh or Chei unvyan InJian.s of Britisl) ami Uussiun .Anieriea ” ; eoniiniinieafed 
by Oeorgi; Gibbs, Sinil hsonimi Reiiorl, 1866, p, 326 ( Washiniitou, 1,S72). Hanlisty’.s statement that ihe 
vvoinen cuokecl, if true, ma^' liax e relerrecl to .some I rilx' liiat <li(.i not freriuent I’ort A ukon and was 
unknown to Murray and ,Joins; or the eustoms of the Kuteliin may have been eliangiii'; in his day. 
llardisty: Op. eit,, p. 312. 
