78 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI.

“ The classifications of Mr. Dall and Father Morice for the northern
group are somewhat different, and that of the latter, who finds fault
with Mr. Dall’s, is obscured by English names that are confusing and of
very little scientific value.” This is from Mr. Campbell. With all due
respect for my opponent's opinion, how can English names in an English
paper obscure a classification of races and confuse the mind of the
English reader? Should they not, on the contrary, rather enlighten to
a greater extent than so many would-be aboriginal words differently
reproduced according to the linguistic ability of the traveller or the fancy
of the transcriber ? And how in the world are they of so “very little
scientific value?” To be scientific, ought an Englishman to call the
French /es Francais, the Italians gl [talianz, the Spaniards los Espaiiols,
the Greeks of ‘Eddjves, etc.? Everywhere words representing ethnic
divisions follow the ‘particular genius of the idiom of the speaker, and
it seems to me that this should more particularly be the case with the
names of American tribes which are generally so difficult, when not
altogether impossible, to spell without diacritical marks or other
accessories found only in a few printing offices. When I write in
English, the Indians nearest to me are the Carriers; should my essay
be in French they become the Porteurs, but, of course, in all my native
publications they remain the TaKejne. So it goes with the Montagnais ;
they are Chippewayans to the English and Déné to themselves ; with
the Beavers, who are Castors to the French, Tsa’tenne to the Carriers,
and Dané to themselves, etc.

According to Prof. Campbell, I maintain that “the Kutchin tribes of
Mr. Dall are, all but one, imaginary.” This is hardly the case. Of
course I would not, even indirectly, accuse my opponent of misrepre-
sentation ; yet his remark is somewhat misleading. It would seem to
imply that, to the exclusion of all the others, one of Dall’s Kutchin
tribes—which one ?—is real. I did say, and must repeat, that those of
his tribes noted under the title of Western Tinneh “ have no existence
but on paper.” But my remarks about the Kutchin are not so sweeping.
I simply “strongly suspect that the seven Kut-chin tribes which he
gives as specifically different, are only so many subdivisions of the same
tribe, all of whom speak the same dialect, probably with local idiomatic
peculiarities.” * Which remark does not exclude the possibility of Dall’s
divisions of the Kutchin being real, though of a secondary importance.
Father Petitot is quite proficient in the language of the Loucheux
or Kutchin whom he has visited both east and west of the Rocky
Mountains. Now he never mentioned but one tribe, and while in

* The Western Dénés, Vol. vii., p. 150.