THE COUNTRY AND ITS ABORIGINES

dians in the employ of the early fur-traders to call the
whole tribe Babines, or “ Lippy People.”

Hunting and fishing have always been practically the
only means of subsistence of the Western Dénés, and their
prospects in life are generally of the most precarious char-
acter, inasmuch as hunger and dire famine are not unknown
to them, especially when the run of salmon, which is the
daily bread of all but the Sekanais, has been a failure.

These aborigines are, for the most part, possessed of
strongly religious instincts. The Sekanais are the most
honest and moral; the Carriers the proudest and most pro-
gressive ; the Chilcotins are violent and none too scrupu-
lous, while for loquacity and conservativenéss the Babines
have few superiors."

With regard to their origin, the short space at our com-
mand in this little sketch evidently debars us from entering
into anything like an adequate discussion of that intricate
question. All we are prepared to state, after a careful
survey of their languages, manners and customs, is that :
ist, They are undoubtedly of a mixed origin ; 2nd, they
have come from the north-north-west ; 3rd, they had, in
their early history, commerce, perhaps through intermar-
riage, with peoples of Jewish persuasion or origin.

As it is, none but the Babines have any reminiscence of
a home different from that they now occupy. If we are to
credit the Ackwilgates (or Western Babines) and their
neighbors, the Kitksons, a Tsimpsian tribe which has the
same tradition, the original seat of the whole Babine tribe
would have been on a flat along the left bank of the Bulkley,
a short distance above the mouth of the Bear River.

1. For the most complete account of those Indians to be found in the
earlier works we would refer to W. C. Hazlitt’s ‘‘ British Columbia and
Vancouver Island.” His information, however, is all second hand, and, at
times, hardly reliable. As to his description of the geographical features of
the country, it is as inaccurate as could be expected from a man writing in
1858, entirely from hearsay. 7