222 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

CHAPTER XV.
Commerce.
Home Transactions.

As most of the travel and transportation incidental to the life of the
modern Dénés is occasioned by the fur trade, it is but natural that we should
now enter into a few details concerning commerce among them. Before they
were aware of the value of furs in the eyes of the whites, all their business
transactions were so few and so simple that the whole system could hardly
be dignified by the name of commerce. Even to-day if you make abstraction
of the fur trade, scarcely anything will be left in that line save occasional
bartering.

Among themselves the Dénés will not be so mean as to “sell” anything.
They simply give it away. But as their great social principle is do ut des,
it follows that their generosity is of a rather cheap kind. You express admira-
tion for an object, and forthwith it passes into your hands and becomes
your property. But you are always expected to return at least its equivalent
in goods. Any one who respects himself and has a care for his reputation
in the tribe will generally more than pay for that object. Nay, were an Indian
desirous of making profits in an easy manner, he would simply have to
bestow his belongings on people known for their generosity. But you need
not broach the subject to a Déné. “We people (Dénés)”, he would promptly
tell you, “we are not a set of mercenaries like the whites, who speak of nothing
but selling and purchasing. We simply give away our goods’. As a matter
of fact, a free gift without an eye to ulterior compensation is something almost
unknown among them.

In case the beneficiary of these “bounties” should forget to return the
compliment, he is soon reminded of his obligations through the intervention
of a third person. Unless desirous of provoking a dispute, the creditor will
never accost the debtor bent on mentioning such a subject. If the object
offered the former through the obliging friend be not agreeable, it is merci-
lessly declined until something of a value at least commensurate with that
of the original transaction is brought forward.

Among the Chilcotins, however, deals akin to a public sale or auction
often took place when I was stationed among them. Nothing would then be
more common than to see a youth entering a house, of an evening, with
some object in hands, a blanket, piece of skin, snares, a belt or any other
part of the wearing apparel, crying out as he came in: 6hkhet, buy! If any
of the inmates was in need of, or took a fancy to, the proffered article, he
would hand the boy what he deemed a fair equivalent for the same, which,