THE GREAT DENE RACE.

Spoons and ladles, when of aboriginal manufacture, are of wood or
mountain sheep horn, according to the habitat of the tribe. In the far east
some are also of musk-ox horn.

The guests sit or squat round the spread, the highest in rank or consi-
deration being placed just opposite the doorway. No women eat with the
men. They have their meal either separately, though simultaneously, in some
corner near the door, or more often still they eat after the men. If the repast
partakes at all of a ceremonial character, the host or hosts never dream of
sharing it with the guests. Their proper rdle is then to serve the latter,
standing and as obsequious as possible. In family affairs the men are served
by the women.

Food Preserving.

Though, in common with all American aborigines, the Dénés are noted
for their improvidence, when luck has favoured them and they have brought
home several heads of large game, they take the necessary steps towards
preserving for future needs the meat they cannot consume within a few days.
The process is very simple. The meat is cut up by the women in very long
slices, which are left to dry over the transversal poles of a rough scaffolding,
under which burns a slow fire. Sometimes the rays of the sun and the
action of the air suffice for the success of the operation. At times also, when
the requirements of travelling do not allow of any stay on the way, the
meat slices are added to the load of the women, on the outside, and left to
dry slowly as the band moves about.

This preserved meat is very substantial, and it will keep for any length
of time. But for unconquerable toughness I would commend cascamet, or
dried beaver meat. This is coal black, and even after long boiling it needs
the sharp teeth of an Indian to crush and masticate it.

Of more easy comestion and rather pleasant to the taste was the well
known pemmican. This consisted in the lean part of the meat thoroughly
dried in the usual way and then pounded between two stones on a dressed
skin. When in its original state this did not contain any fat or seasoning of
any kind. Most of what I have seen of it belonged to that class. But the
early traders, to render it at the same time more palatable and serviceable,
after obtaining it from the Indians in the shape of a fine powdered meat,
completed the process by adding fat thereto and sewing it up in bags of
undressed hide with the hairy side out.

A superior pemmican was obtained by mixing the meat dust with
marrow and dried service berries. Loose pemmican sweetened with sugar is
still occasionally made by the mountain tribes.

We have referred above to salmon oil. It is obtained by cutting off the
heads of the fish, which are deposited in the shallow water of the lakes,
spitted through by long willow twigs to keep them together. There they are