WAR-PICKS

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hafted through or at the end of a short,
stout, wooden handle, and is essentially
a warclub. The Tsimshian call it nascah
(killer); the Kitikshan of the upper Skeena,
darees; the Tlingit, ka-too (‘turned up’).
But made of jade it was very rare, and being
the most highly valued of stone pieces, it
was possessed only by a few of the greater
chiefs. From the fact that it was used on
ceremonial occasions to kill slaves, the term
“slave-killer’ has been applied to it by
collectors. The writer can account for
six of these implements, and possibly
others, gathered by early explorers, may be
found in European collections.

A description of one in the writer’s
possession (pl. Ix, b) will answer generally
for the others. This was an hereditary
piece in the family of the Tahlqwayde, or
Tahlkoedi, of the Stikine tribe of Tlingit,
living at Wrangel. On the marriage of
the headchief’s daughter to Choquette,
a French Canadian in the employ of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, about 1865, it
was presented to him as the most treasured

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