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European thread on a sewing machine, and ornamented with beaded
designs that are predominantly floral (Plate VI). Some natives even
prefer gloves, which they make themselves or purchase from the Hudson’s
Bay Company.

The Sekani never practised tattooing, apparently, nor could any of
the living natives recall the black stripe painted across the face beneath
the eyes that Mackenzie noticed in the women. They remembered, how-
ever, that both men and women daubed red ochre mixed with fat over
the cheeks, and often rubbed off portions of the ochre to leave some fan-
tastic design, of no set pattern, but pleasing to the whim of the wearer.

Of their ornaments Mackenzie says:

“ They have also a few white beads, which they get where they procure
their iron: they are from a line to an inch in length and are worn in their
ears, but are not of European manufacture. These, with bracelets made
of horn and bone, compose all the ornaments which decorate their persons.
Necklaces of the grizzly or white bear’s claws, are worn exclusively by
ihe men.”

The white beads, of course, were dentalia shells, obtained through
Carrier and Gitksan natives from the coast; they were worn both in the
ears and noses. Other ornaments worn by western tribes, such as anklets
and cedar-bark necklaces, were not adopted by the Sekani; nor did they
sprinkle their heads with eagle-down at dances, though both sexes planted
the white plumes of the eagle in their hair.

DWELLINGS

Both in the Parsnip and Finlay River basins the Sekani lived origin-
ally in conical lodges covered with spruce bark, for which in post-European
times they often substituted moose-skins. Morice has described their
dwellings thus:

“The habitations of the Tse’kehne, whether in winter or in summer,
are built after the eastern or conical model. Four long poles with forking
extremities are set up one against another, the lower ends of which form
on the ground a square on the dimensions of which will depend the size of
the lodge. A score or so of other poles are then set up in a circle, the top
of each resting on the point of intersection of the first four. In winter,
small fascines of spruce are laid horizontally all around the lower perimeter
of this frame, so as to leave as few points of access as possible for the
cold air from underneath the outer covering, which is then wrapped around
the cone resulting from the converging poles. This covering consists of
dressed moose skins sewn together, and its perpendicular edges correspond
to the entrance of the lodge. They are either buttoned or clasped together
from four to five feet above the ground up to the top. On one side of the
opening thereby produced is sewn a smaller skin, which forms the door.
Two sticks attached transversely thereto on the inside give it the requisite
consistency, while the upper one, which slightly projects beyond the edge

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