78

THE GREAT DENE RACE.

They now claim to have borrowed it from their Mohave neighbours, and only
their young people are addicted to it. On the other hand, their near kinsmen,
the Navahoes, do not seem to practise it even to this day, though their
vocabulary contains a word for tattooing?.

In the north, the custom is more or less obsolescent. Even there it never
quite obtained the social importance it enjoyed among the natives of the
Pacific Coast living under corresponding latitudes, though the tribes nearest
to them were naturally more affected by its manifestations than the purely
aboriginal Dénés. Tattooing with the latter, nay, even among the Carriers or
the Babines, never follows the elaborate patterns prevailing among the Maoris,
or even the Haidas or the Tsimpsians. Blue bars, single, parallel or radiating
{rom a common centre are, we might say, the primitive forms assumed by
the tattoo marks. One, two or three short lines from the glabella over the
forehead, perhaps as many from the corner of the eyes across the temples or
simply horizontally drawn over the same, a like operation repeated from the
angles of the mouth in the direction of the maxillary bones, and a few more
running vertically over the chin are an exaggerated form of tattooing among
the eastern Dénés. Cases were rare when all these parts of face were affected
thereby in the same individual.

In this respect, the western Dénés were a sort of connecting link between
the simple style of the eastern tribes and the more elaborate designs in vogue
among the allophylic races of the North Pacific coast, Among the Carriers
crosses or the symbols of mountains, birds or grizzly bears, such as figured
in our chapter on Déné pictography, were not unfrequently reproduced on
the skin in conjunction with the small stripes already mentioned. No totemic
or other significance was attached to the signs as such when these consisted
of mere bars. At times, however, persons closely related by blood or gentile
ties were fond of following the same style of tattooing. Two women of the
native village near Stuart Lake Mission have adopted the rather complex
facial designs originated by the Koezi of our illustration.

Vhen the chest was adomed with tattoo marks, a circumstance of rare
occurrence even among the western Dénés, the figures thereon represented
had generally a totemic significance, as among the coast tribes from whom the
whole system had been borrowed. A much coveted emblem among the
Carriers was the symbol of the grizzly bear, the adoption of which cost many
a ceremonial banquet and entitled the wearer to exceptional regard.

The wrists or forearms were more often the seat of tattoo marks. When
there situated, these referred generally to a personal totemic animal, whose
symbol on the limbs was supposed to still tighten the bonds already existing
between totem and tattooed individual. Sometimes, however, marks on the
arms or legs were intended as specifics against premature weakness. In such

* Strange to say, the Carriers, in spite of their long familiarity with the practice, use in
connection with tattooing a word which means simply to sew.