NAME OF THE DENES AND THEIR HABITAT IN THE NORTH. 1]

property of the Dénés, the rightful line of demarcation between the two
Stocks running slightly further down than the first great bend in that stream
as we ascend it from its delta, that is, above the confluence of Peel River,
instead of south of Fort Good Hope, as the map would have it.

Nor is this all. North of the United States, the Dénés are eminently an
inland race. Yet Powell’s map assigns thereto sea littoral in four different
places within Alaska, viz. Norton Sound, the mouth of the Kuskovim River,
Cook’s Inlet and Copper River.

There is not the shadow of a doubt that the entire coast of Norton
Sound is peopled by Eskimo tribes. Whymper’s map, made after a personal
exploration of that corner of America, plainly attributes to the Malemutes
that very part of the sound littoral which Powell’s grants to the Déneés.
True, Whymper, who is more of an artist than of an ethnographer, calls
them Malemute “Indians”; but the desinence of their name is by itself
sufficient to betray their ethnological Status, -mute (myut) being the Eskimo
equivalent of the Déné -o’tinne, and the Salish -muh, all of which mean
/ people ‘or:

Moreover, W. H. Dall, in whose company Whymper travelled, is quite
clear on that point. Fort Unaklit, whence they started on their overland
journey, is just at the mouth of the river of the same name. But he men-
tions “two assemblages of houses occupied by Innuit of the Kaviat, Mahle-
mut and Unaleet tribes’! He then describes the sleds of the Eskimos, and,
after one good day’s travel from the coast, he arrives “at the first Indian
village”*, which he says’ is twenty-two miles in a straight line from the sea.
Further on he gives a sketch of the “Innuit of Norton Sound’’*, and declares
that “it should be thoroughly and definitely understood that they are not
Indians”,

We may therefore well consider this point as settled. That Powell him-
self regards it in that light is evident from the fact that, in spite of the
wrong impression conveyed by his map, he does not mention Norton Sound
in his paper as one of the places where the Déné race reaches the coast.

The same conflict between map and report exists with regard to the
ethnography of the mouth of the Kuskovim River, whose colouring proclaims
it as glaringly Déné. We will just as easily dispose of that difficulty by
Stating that Latham includes within the area claimed by the Eskimos the
lower part of that stream®. Indeed, he goes even too far in this respect, since

‘ “Travels on the Yukon and in the Yukon Territory”. London reprint of 1898, p. 24.
* Ibid., p. 26.

° Ibid., p. 31,

* Ibid., p. 187.

* “The Native Races of the Russian Empire’, p. 289. London, 1854.