THE SOUTHERN DENES. 45

of the Carriers, and the conjugation of their verbs to that of the Mon-
tagnais’”’!.

The Names oi the Southern Dénés.

Neither Apache nor Navaho is a Déné term. As the tribes they represent
constitute the most populous and most widely known of all the Déné branches,
a few words on the probable origin and meaning of their names may not
be out of place.

Navaho was originally written Navajo”, and it may be seen at a glance
that it is a word of Spanish origin. According to the late Dr. W. Matthews,
that name is generally supposed to mean “clasping-knife or razor”, and to
have been given by the Spaniards because the Navaho warriors carried great
stone knives about their persons. It has also been suggested that the name
may come from an homonymous word meaning pool or small lake. Finally
Horatio Hale, a prominent American ethnologist, recorded the fact that some
take it to signify Cornfield People®. In the light of the latest researches, this
interpretation does not seem devoid of appropriateness.

Father Leopold’s own explanation, however, is still more plausible. As
the name is evidently Spanish, the records of the old Spanish missionaries
and explorers must naturally contain the key to its meaning. Now, in a me-
morial to the king of Spain written in 1630 by Fra Alonzo de Benavides,
O. F. M. the writer, after describing the Gila-Apaches, says that more than
fifty leagues north of them “‘one encounters the Province of the Apaches of
Navajo. Although they are the same Apache nation as the foregoing, they
are subject and subordinate to another Chief Captain, and have a distinct
mode oi living. For those of back yonder did not use to plant, but sustained
themselves by the chase; and to-day we have broken land for them and
taught them to plant. But these of Navajo are very great farmers, for that is
what Navajo signifies — great planted fields’*.

From the expression “the Apaches of Navajo” it is evident that the last
word did at first represent, not the natives now called by it, but the country
they inhabited. The southern Dénés were to the Spaniards simply Apaches
who, for the sake of convenience, were at first qualified by their particular
habitats, until frequent repetition and love of conciseness caused the names
of the Indians to be discarded in favour of that of their land, as it often
happens even in our days.

As to the word Apache itself, the same missionary proposes as a possible
etymology the Spanish verb apacentar, to drive herds to pasture, and his
supposition derives colour from the fact that A. F. Bandelier, speaking of the

' Letter from Fr. Leopold, Dec., 27, 1905.
? Dr. Matthews is the party responsible for the change in the spelling of the word.
3 “fanguage as a Test of Mental Capacity”. Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, vol. IX, p. 86.
4 «T and of the Sunshine”, vol. XIII, No. 6.