firing. Despite these undoubted advantages, this walking-stick tends to become obsolete in several localities.

But one implement now remains on our list of undescribed wood-andskin items. This is the ice-scoop or jupas of which an idea may be gathered from fig. 146. It is brought into requisition to scoop out of the hole one is making in the ice the broken pieces driven in with the até or ice-breaker. The frame is usually of mountain maple. Fig. 147 will explain the connection between the strings and the frame.

TEXTILE AND TWINED FABRICS.

We now come to the twined and textile fabrics of the Western Dénés. The latter are very few; indeed the weaving industry might almost be described as null among those tribes, since the rabbit skin blankets were originally the only genuine textile fabric manufactured among either the Carriers, the Tsé'kéhne or the TsijKoh'tin.

The weaving of these could hardly be more primitive. The first step is of course to spin, or rather to twist on the naked thigh, the strips of the rabbit skins. These are previously steeped in water to facilitate the cutting and spinning operations. Each skin is made to yield one single band, and each band is knotted end to end so as to form a continuous cord.

A frame or loom is first erected with poles of the proper dimensions and secured either by planting the two side pieces in the ground, or, more commonly, by leaning them against each wall of any corner in the house. Over the two cloth-beams, the skin cord is wound so as to form the warp. As for the woof, a separate strip is knotted in its middle part to the last left hand thread of the warp in such a way that two threads result which are then twisted together, then entwined with the next warp thread, again twisted together, again entwined with the next perpendicular thread, and so on until the last thread of the warp is reached, when the operation is resumed from the right to the left. Each successive woof thread is added immediately under the preceding one so that the weaving, if weaving there be, is always in a downward direction. Whenever the

a

web becomes too low for the convenience of the weaver, web and warp are made to revolve on the loom beams up to the suitable height. The web is then momentarily steadied by means of a string attached on either side to the perpendicular poles of the loom. No batten or any similar device is used. Fig. 148 will give some idea of the whole process. The cut a represents a cross-section of the web.

The TsiKoh'tin and Carrier women now weave fairly good belts or girths out of the yarn they get at their trading posts. But this is a new industry among them and we need not tarry in its description. Suffice it to say that they use wooden healds as those of the Zuni Indians. Indeed, I think that the whole method of girth weaving is practically identical with these two heterogeneous stocks.

The Tsi Koh'tin women also weave or plait mats commonly used to spread on the floor or ground instead of a table cloth, the menu of the family repast round which each person squats while partaking thereof. The material is a sort of rush or juncaceous plant, the exact species of which I could not determine. Matting is an unknown industry among the Carriers and the Tsé'kéhne.

With regard to the mode of netting, the drag-nets of the Western Dénés are of two kinds: one is intended for service against any species of fish, with the exception of the sturgeon, and the other is of use to capture the latter fish exclusively. Fig. 149 will explain the manner of

knotting the sturgeon net, while all the other kinds of netting, whether drag, scoop, or dip-nets, or even, the packing bags which shall soon be described, are knotted, as shown in fig. 150.

No mesh-stick is used while the Carrier is working at the smaller varieties of nets. It is replaced by the middle finger of the left hand. In this case, the netting-needle also consists merely in a narrow piece of board scalloped at either end to receive the twine which is wound around. But when at work upon large-meshed nets, our aborigines have recourse to the picture frame-like wooden implement herewith figured. This is

carved out of one piece and serves as a mesh-stick. It has replaced the original wooden horse-shoe made of a bent twig. In this case a regular netting shuttle is also resorted to. As this is in every particular identical with that common among white fishermen, it is but natural to infer that it is here a borrowed article.

The meshes of the sturgeon net are about ten inches square, while those of the beaver nets are based on the distance between the tip of the thumb and that of the index finger when both are outstretched. The width of any kind of fish-net of the larger variety corresponds with that of seventeen meshes of the same net. The nets intended for smaller fish have their meshes from 3/4 of an inch to one inch and a half square. About twenty of the former dimensions form the width of the net. All kinds of drag-nets measure at least one hundred feet in length.

Among the Tsé'kéhne both hands outstretched with the thumbs tip to tip are the standard measure for the width of the beaver net. Large nets require twelve such units, while the smaller ones have only nine, or thereabouts. Such nets never exceed twenty-five feet in length.

Fig. 152.

*

Identical in netting are the two kinds of dip-nets in use among the Carriers. The first (fig. 152) serves either to catch salmon or to scoop out the smaller fish which periodically swarm up certain shallow streams. When doing service against salmon, it is dipped in the water and then left until a capture is effected. But if used to catch small fish, it is managed as a ladle. Its make will be easily understood by a glance at the above figure. It is from five to six feet deep.

Fig. 153 represents a smaller variety of the dip-net. It serves in a few places only, and, as a rule, its period of usefulness does not exceed four or five days in one year. During the first warm days of each recurring spring, immense numbers of the themak, the very small fish which we have already mentioned in another chapter, ascend to the surface of the water in a few lakes and become an easy prey to the Indian women who, armed with this net, scoop out canoe loads of it in * Pe-thǝkaih," wherewith one scoops," a verbal noun.

one single day. Less than a week thereafter, not a fish will be seen of the myriads that were basking in the sun. Of course, the meshes

of the dip-net resorted to as a means of securing them are proportionally small. They are scarcely a quarter of an inch square.

The nets of our aborigines were originally of the fibre of either the nettle (Urtica Lyallii), the willow (Salix longifolia) bark, or a species of