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Cree, Dishinni, who had passed the mountains before Mackenzie’s day,
and who extended their rdids, then or later, to Carp lake, between McLeod
and Stuart lakes, and to Fort Grahame on Finlay river. The Gitksan
and the Tahltan also knew and dreaded them, though they probably never
came into direct conflict with them, but merely heard of their depreda-
tions from the Sekani. The Cree have, therefore, become a semi-mythical
people among these western tribes, though very real to the Sekani. The
meaning of the word Dishinni is unknown.

The natives of Fort McLeod say that the Cree, armed with guns, often
wandered to Carp lake before the first white men appeared, and that the
Sekani, having only bows and arrows at that time, could offer no effective
resistance. The Cree raided them principally for women, whom they
carried off to become their wives. They attacked the Sekani in three
places one summer, at the head of Parsnip river, on Pack river, just below
Trout lake, and at Finlay Forks, the junction of Finlay and Parsnip rivers.
Many Sekani of both the Tsekani and Yutuchan bands were killed in that
year.

The Cree once carried away two women of the Tsekani band. Though
well treated these women became homesick and seized the first oppor-
tunity to escape. They possessed no knives, and had no means of making
fire; but they snared grouse with spruce roots and ate them raw; and they
built rude rafts to cross the rivers they encountered. After travelling in
this way for two weeks they reached their own country.

Two brothers were hunting groundhog one summer in the high
mountains near the head of Smoky river. Two Cree, one of whom carried
a gun, entered their camp while they were up the mountain, and only
their wives remained behind. The Cree did not harm the women, intending
to carry them away; but they ascended a short distance above the camp
to intercept their husbands. Toward evening the two hunters appeared on
the crest of a ridge above them. One Cree shouted “I am going to shoot,”
and fired his gun; but the bullet passed between the two men. The elder
Sekani said to the younger, “ Let us throw rocks at them, or they will
kill us.” The younger brother threw a rock, and missed. Then the elder
brother, whose dream-guardian was the groundhog, rubbed a large stone
against his chest, breathed on it, and hurling with all his might, struck
a Cree on the forehead. The other Cree, seeing his companion dead,
fled; but the same hunter threw another stone in the same way, struck him
in the nape of the neck, and killed him also.

East of Parsnip river one spring was a family consisting of a hunter and
his young wife, the girl’s mother, and her younger brother, the last being
a mere boy. While the man and boy were hunting some Cree entered their
camp, killed the old woman and kept the girl as a captive.’ They then
awaited the return of her husband. The girl heard him crossing a stream
near the camp and shouted, “Run. The Cree have captured me.” The
man dropped his pack and fled, followed by the boy; and the Cree pursued
them. As the boy could not run fast enough, his brother-in-law said “ Go