only are tanned for use. Moose is rare within the Carriers' territory, and still more so is the deer. Therefore, with that tribe, mocassins, mittens and gloves, bags, etc., are almost exclusively of cariboo skin. We will here pass over skin articles, which belong to the native accoutrement or wearing apparel, as these shall be treated of in the next chapter.

Confining ourselves to household or non-personal objects, we may mention no less than seven varieties of leather bags or pouches in use among the primitive Carriers. Fig. 134 represents the household bag or eztjai. This is generally the property of women and serves to contain the family chattels, but more particularly such as are proper to the women, clothes, pieces of tanned skins, working tools, articles of ornamentation, etc. This bag needs no description; the cut cannot but give an exact idea of its form. The bead work in some is much more elaborate than in the specimen herewith figured. Before the introduction of glass beads, dyed porcupine quills served to ornament this and all other kinds of skin receptacle. The cover piece of this eztai is also, I am told, a modern innovation. This bag is never used as a packing contrivance.

A variety of the same, but much reduced in dimensions, was formerly the regular badge of widowhood among Carrier women, so much so that the custom which required its use has given the Carriers their distinctive name. Among them cremation was the national mode of disposing of the dead. As a rule, on the morning following the funeral ceremony, the relatives of the deceased, accompanied by his widow, were wont to pick up from among the ashes of the pyre the few remaining charred bones which, if too large for the purpose in view, they did not scruple to reduce by breaking to the desired size, These were then handed to the widow to daily pack till her liberation from the bondage consequent on her new condition. This gruesome task devolved on her for the space of at least two or three years, and in extreme cases was prolonged to a period of some five years. Upon the final giving away of property which was the signal for the cessation of mourning, these bones were deposited with the satchet containing them in a box laid on the top of a funeral column near the village.

Some of these satchets were still in existence a few years ago. Their cover, instead of fitting over the whole bag as in the household eztai, reached only half way down. Its sides were also sewn with those of the satchet itself, so as to preclude the possibility of its contents being accidentally thrown out. Of course, a string was attached to the satchet and passed across the neck or or breast of the packer. A lining of birch

bark also gave the receptacle a certain degree of consistency, and served moreover as an additional protection for the bones.

The regular packing wallet herewith figured is still very generally used for carrying provisions during long journeys and might be termed the native buffet. It is of two different materials; its main parts are of undressed moose hide with the hair out, while its sides, top and bottom are of tanned cariboo skin. The skin of the upper part of the legs of the animal is chosen in preference and sewn together, as may appear from a glance at the illustration below. The packing band is also of untanned moose skin. On either side of the bag, ears of tanned skin are pierced each with two holes, the lower one of which is intended to receive the strap when the walllet is not full. The broad or middle part packer, and, after sliding

of this line passes athwart the forehead of the through one of the holes at either side of the bag, its loose ends are drawn forward and tied over the breast, so that the position of the burden can be changed at will.

Not uncommonly these wallets or knap-sacks are made entirely of dried salmon skins sewn together. Once the flesh of the fish has reached the proper degree of stiffness, it is carefully torn off and one of the skins is shredded into fine filaments which serve as thread.

The qu'kéz generally does duty in connection with heavy burdens, which means for anybody au fait with native sociology that it is the appanage of the women. The men have also a packing bag of their own intended as a receptacle of such light burdens as are incident to short trips, and which shall be described further on.

The fourth variety of leather bags is the dog-bag, which is so much like a common saddle-bag that I refrain from figuring it here. No harnessing device is connected with it, it is simply lashed on the sides of the canine with a separate line.

Fig. 136 also represents a double-bag; but this is proper to the huntsman. In one end of it he keeps his provision of powder, and in the other that of shot or balls. Both halves of the bag are shut by tying around the strings attached immediately below the common or middle opening. Out of this ammunition pouch the huntsman fills up as often as necessary his powder horn, and his ornamented. shot pouch which are parts of his accoutrement.

Fig. 136.

Fig. 137.

Here we have a Kwan-zaz or fire-bag. Its use has ceased with the introduction of matches, and its name is now given to a small pouch of different pattern, though somewhat similar in intent. The former served to carry about or keep at home the tinders and parched hay originally

required to start a fire with the fire drill or more recently with the fire steel. Its elliptical form was probably intended as a help in guarding its contents against rain or moisture. As an additional measure of precaution, the pouch was generally carried under the arm pit suspended from the neck.

Its modern substitute is of common cloth in the form of a flour sack and with two strings so arranged at its mouth that the pouch can be shut by drawing them apart. Matches and tobacco with a pocket knife are generally the only things kept in this Kwənzəz.

Fig. 138 represents a needle and thread pouch. Although originally of tanned skin it is now almost exclusively of black or blue cloth trimmed with ribbons or coloured tape.

Fig. 138.

To complete our list of skin objects of Déné manufacture, we should add to the above the pe-sta (wherein one sits), a sort of cuirass in use in prehistoric times especially among the Carriers. It had the form of a sleeveless tunic falling to the knees, so that it protected the whole body, since those aborigines generally shot kneeling. Its material was moose skin which, when sewn according to the proper pattern, was soaked in water, then repeatedly rubbed on the sandy shores of a stream or lake and dried with the sand and small pebbles adhering thereto, after which it was thoroughly coated with sturgeon glue. Being again subjected before drying to another rubbing over sand, it received a new coating of glue, and after this process had been repeated three or four times, it formed an armour perfectly arrow proof.*

In his Appendice relatif aux armes de pierre des Indiens arctiques published in 1875, the Abbè E. Petitot, speaking of the Dénés of the Mackenzie Basin, says that "ces Indiens arctiques prétendent qu'ils n'ont pas toujours habité sur le sol où nous les avous trouvés, mais qu'ils ont vècu, à une époque fort éloignée, dans une patrie plus belle que la présente. . Dans cette terre

bien tour dans l'occident, un peuple puissant opprimait les Loucheux et les Peaux-de-lièvre. Ce peuple se rasait la tête, portait de faux cheveux et se coiffait de casques. Ses guerriers se couvraicnt la poitrine d' une tunique de peau d'élan revêtue d'une foule de petits cailloux coagulès en manière d' écailles (cuirasse); ce qui les rendait comme invulnérables à leurs traits. . . . A cette époque les Déné-Dindjiés faisaient, disaient-ils, usage de lances, qu'ils m'ont dépeintes comme des couteaux fixés par une ligature au bout d' une perche; d'épieux, sorte de cornes munies d' un crochet et également emmanchées; d' arbalétes; de dagues, et enfin de boucliers." Then the learned missionary adds that “, aucune de ces armes offensives et défensives. .. n'a suivi les Déné-Dindjies en Amerique." The

italics are mine, and it is hardly necessary to remark that the line thus pointed out would never have been written had its author been acquainted with the original Carrier sociology. For, as

OBJECTS OF MIXED MATERIAL.

As may be seen by figs. 139 and 140, the Déné drums, though possessing minor characteristics of their own, do not essentially differ from the tambourines in universal use among the North American Indians. In every case we have merely a dressed skin-which is here of cariboostretched ove a narrow hoop. The Carrier drum (fig. 139) not only had no bottom strings, but its makers even dispensed with any cord as a means of holding the instrument. The same piece of skin in which almost consisted the whole drum was cut on the reverse or back side into four strips tapering to the centre into regular strings which were knotted as shown above, b, and which served as a means of grasping the instrument.

The Tsé'kéhne drum (fig. 140) though apparently a very simple piece of workmanship, evidences much greater ingenuity on the part of its contrivers. Not only does it possess the bottom strings designed to enhance its sonorousness, but these very strings are so disposed that they help not a little in using the instrument. After passing beneath the frame of the drum they are drawn up over it under the encircling skin, and again introduced through the middle of the hoop from which they protrude inside in the shape of a loop through which the thumb is passed

a matter of fact, all the arms and defensive weapons above enumerated had their counterparts on this side of the Rockies but a short time ago. In that "skin tunic covered with small coagulated pebbles," we recognize, of course, the pe-sta just described; the lances regarded by Petitot, after his informants, as so very ancient were the saRthez spoken of on page 62; the épieux or spears are not materially different: Petitot describes them as "hafted hooks" and it so happens that the Carrier name of these weapons means "hook-sticks." The cross-bows we have likewise seen in use among the Tsé'kéhne, while the daggers and the shields were no less common among the Carriers. Nay more, even the "false hair,' or wigs were in vogue here as late as thirty years ago. These will be found described in our Chapter on Dress and Personal Adornment.