38 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

Lake; Tano-’tenne, Fort George!; Nutsa-’tenne, basin of the Blackwater;
Nazkhu-’tenne, Quesnel and mouth of Blackwater River, and Lthau-’tenne,
Fort Alexandria. Instead of these, R. Cox gives us? the so-called Slowercuss,
Dinais, Dinnee, and Talkotin — as fanciful a nomenclature as ever existed,
even in the works of non-professional English-speaking writers.

From a broader linguistic standpoint, the Carriers may be properly
classed as Upper and Lower Carriers. The area covered by the former is from
the forks of Lake Tatla in the north down to a line running midway bet-
ween Fraser and Stuart Lakes and some distance above the mouth of the
Stuart River. All the remaining forests in the south belong to the latter. The
entire tribe is denominated Arefne, “Carriers”, by the Sékanais, while the
northern portion thereof is known to the Babines as ’Kutcne, a word which
seems to-day meaningless.

The total Carrier population is now 970. The reason of its name, and
its interesting social organization and customs will later on claim our un-
divided attention. Meanwhile, it is consoling to remark that, thanks to the
influence of the missionnaries stationed among them, that tribe has, during
the last thirty years, constantly been on the increase, its ranks now rallying
from the rude shock experienced by the establishment of the first trading
posts in the far west. Unfortunately, more than half of the southern Carriers
had been carried off by disease, epidemics and loose morals before the action
of the priest could be made to tell on their daily lives.

Of all the Déné tribes in the north or the south, the Carriers form the
only one which can boast a continuous history, running from 1660 down to
our own times®, whereby the workings of the native mind, as exemplified by
their deeds, are betrayed in a more authentic manner than could be presented
in the most learned treatise.

3lst. This honour is, however, shared to a certain extent, by the Chil-
cotins (Teni, or more usually naenkhai-teeni), a tribe whose real distinctive
name is 7sitkhoh-’tin*. They occupy the valley of the river called after them,
and the bunch-grass covered table-lands bordering on the same, as far south
as the Lillooet Mountains (51° 30° N. lat.). In the east their territory is
bounded by the Fraser®, in the north by that of the Carriers, while in the
west nature has opposed the Cascade range of mountains as a barrier against

" Where quite a few Sékanais are now settled. 7ano-'tenne is the name given them by
the people of Stuart Lake.

* “Adventures on the Columbia”, p. 323. New-York, 1832.

* “History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia”, by the present writer. Toronto,
W. Briggs, 1904 (third ed. in 1905).

*“ W. H. Dall is more accurate than usual when he calls them Tsilkotinneh.

* But it is only in recent times that they have reached its banks. Their main seat
was, before the advent of the whites, at Nakunt’lun Lake, in the northwest corner of their
present habitat, where a very few of them still remain, or remained till a late date.