39

san Indians still use a gaff in this way to catch the steel-head salmon in the
shallow upper waters of Kispiox river; for bait they often use only a piece
of red flannel, but the Sekani, who caught not salmon but Dolly Varden
trout, used bunches of fine sinew. There were also fish-hooks, as men-
tioned by Mackenzie, “small bones, fixed in pieces of wood split for that
purpose, and tied round with fine watape,” which were jigged or occasion-
ally set overnight concealed in a wrapping of sinew. The modern Sekani
state that their fishing-lines were made of sinew, but Mackenzie speaks
of “nets and fishing-lines made of willow-bark and nettles; those made of
the latter are finer and smoother than if made with hempen thread.’”’!

DEADFPALLS, SNARES, NETS, AND WEIRS

In fishing and hunting, however, the Sekani relied less on their wea-
pons than on deadfalls, snares, and nets. Deadfalls they still employ occa-
sionally for groundhog, fisher, and marten, in earlier times probably for
other animals also. But they procured most of their game, whether ground-
hogs or moose, with snares. “They have snares made of green skin
[babiche], “ says Mackenzie,” which they cut to the size of sturgeon twine,
and twist a certain number of them together, and though when completed
they do not exceed the thickness of a cod-line, their strength is sufficient
to hold a moose-deer: they are from one and a half to two fathoms in
length.”? A few years after Mackenzie’s day Simon Fraser saw the Indians
snaring mountain sheep:

“ We were greatly amused looking at some of the [Meadow] Indians
running after the wild sheep which they call As-pah. They are really
expert, indeed running full speed among the perpendicular rocks which
had I not ocular demonstration I could never believe to have been trained
by any creature either of the human or brute creation for the rocks
appeared to us which perhaps might be exaggerated a little from the dis-
tance to be as steep as a wall and yet while in pursuit of the sheep they
bounded from one to another with the swiftness of a Roe.and at last
killed two in their snares.”2

The bear and the moose, of course. required much stronger snares
than the rabbit and grouse, and the Sekani probably set their nooses in
two or three different ways. By constructing long fences of brush, and
setting snares at intervals of a few feet or yards, the Indians captured
whole flocks of grouse, and whole herds of caribou, as explained by
Morice:

“ The Sékanais....previously set in a continuous line 40 or 50 moose
hide snares in suitable defiles or passes in the mountains frequented by the
animals. Two of the most active hunters are then deputed to watch at
either end of the line, after which the hunters, who usually number fif-

1 Mackenzie: Op. cit., p. 206.
? First Journal of Simon Fraser: Op. cit., May 26, 1806.