35

of birch bark, lighting their fires, like all the northern Indians, with
pyrites. They had four ways of cooking meat and fish: boiling in spruce-
bark (later birch-bark) baskets over a slow fire; boiling in similar baskets,
or in baskets woven from spruce roots, by means of hot stones; roasting on
spits; and drying in the smoke of a fire.

None of the old spruce-bark or spruce-root baskets survive today, but
the Sekani still make a few birch-bark baskets like the one shown in
Plate XIII. This is a well-made specimen, neatly stitched up the sides
and around the reinforced rim with spruce roots. The only decorations
are two narrow lines of black horse-hair beaded under the stitching of the
rim, and at intervals a false over-stitching with bands of dyed horse-hair.

The spoons of horn have disappeared likewise, but one occasionally
sees wooden spoons, like the specimen in Plate VIII, some of whose handles
are rudely serrated or decorated with hatched lines. Bags of moose-hide
are common still; there are rough bags closed with draw-strings (Plate IX),
used for carrying berries and meat; net bags of babiche (Plate X) and
beaded moose-hide bags with flaps that button or tie over (Plate IX),
used for all sorts of miscellaneous objects. For cleaning these moose-hides
the Sekani employ either a caribou antler, chisel-ended and with serrated
edget, or the shoulder-bone of a moose sharpened like a draw-knife
(Plate VIII).

Game was scarce during the winter months, so the Sekani gathered
in summer a large stock of dried meat and stored it under spruce bark
on a platform raised on four posts that had been carefully smoothed to
prevent wolverines and other animals from climbing up. For still greater
security they sometimes erected these caches, not on posts, but in trees,
as described by Morice:

“They erect sorts of scaffoldings immediately against the trunk of a
tall tree. . . . These consist of two long, heavy sticks crossed and firmly
bound to the trunk of the tree at their point of intersection, while their
ends are secured to some stout overhanging branch by means of strong
ropes. Rough boards or split sticks are then laid across this frame which
form a floor over which the meat or any other eatable is deposited, care-
fully wrapped over with skins or spruce bark. Even the bear cannot get
at those caches without previously demolishing their floor, which is prac-
tically impossible.” 2

At McLeod lake and at Fort Grahame the Sekani have now erected
miniature storehouses on posts (Plate II). These are apparently modified
forms of their earlier caches, which may still persist away from the
settlements.

The Long Grass Indians cooked their food in the same manner as the
rest of the Sekani, but also practised other methods which they learned,
apparently, from the Gitksan and Tahltan. Thus they sometimes boiled
their meat in wooden boxes with hot stones, like the coast tribes; and at

1 Morice: Op. cit., p. 70.
2 Op. cit., p. 197.