DISTRIBUTION AND POPULATION OF THE NORTHERN DENES, 38

records the fact that the fur traders were then striving to draw the Indians
therefrom to the westward where the beaver was to be found in plenty?.

The Intermediate Dénés.

The next group in our list is that of the Intermediate Dénés. The
southern tribes belonging thereto, as well as the Western Dénés, are per-
sonally known to the present writer. Their ethnographical standing can therefore
be stated without difficulty. This cannot be said of the more northern — and
generally less important — bands, in connection wherewith not a little con-
fusion exists in the writings of even the best ethnologists. After a careful!
Survey of the literature bearing on the subject, as well as from personal
knowledge obtained through Nahanais and Sékanais informants, J think I can
safely present the following as the most reliable nomenclature.

22nd. The most northerly of the Intermediate Dénés on the Hudson’s
Bay Company’s map are denominated thereon “Mountain Indians”. But north
of them is another tribe called by Richardson “Sheep People” and by Franklin
Ambawtaw-hoot-dinneh, or Sheep Indians2, because of the ovis montana which
its members hunt on the summits of the Rocky Mountains, whence they regu-
larly descend to Fort Good Hope (about 66° 25‘) to trade their pelts. They
are the Esba-tha-o’tinne of Petitot, who inadvertently shifts their habitat as
far south as Fort Liard®, Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. Their numbers
are not given, but it is understood that the tribe is not populous.

23rd. Due south of these, and always within the gorges or on the slopes
of the Rockies, is, by about 65°N. lat., another band whose trading rendez-
vous is Fort Norman on the Mackenzie. These are the real Mountain Indians
of the l. c. maps, of Franklin+, and of Richardson himself®, though he would fain
let us confound them with another tribe still farther south. That author dubs
them Daha-’dtinné, though he remarks® that they assume themselves the tribal
appellation Cheta-ut-dtinné, meaning evidently 7sé-tha-o’tinne, or people
among the rocks’. They are identical with the Mauvais Monde or Et’ga-
o’tinné® of Petitot, who he says are very little known. So little known, in-

* “Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea”, vol. il, p. 50. This is fully confirmed by
the circumstance that S. Hearne wrote sixty years before: “Our Northern Indians who trade
at the Factory, as well as all the Copper tribe, pass their whole summer on the barren ground,
where they generaally find plenty of deer” (“A Journey to the Northern Ocean”, p. 2380).

= Mrcticson Expeds) voli lle ps 7; “Journey to the Shores”, v. Ill, p. 54.

* Mémoire abrégé, p. 246.

Wolk, 0 jo, BL,

° Vol. Il, p. 6.

9 Mbt, {Ds Te

* “Rocks” is the usual name of the Rocky Mountains in the formation of tribal names.
Dall erroneously makes two tribes of that single division, which he locates on the Liard River
and calls respectively Déaho’-tena@’ and Aché’to-tin’neh (Contributions to N. Am. Ethnology,
vol. I, p. 383).

* The exact equivalent of the word Kut'ga-kut gin.