NAME OF THE DENES AND THEIR HABITAT IN THE NORTH. 7

-ne, which is expressive of the personal plural, as the -wok or -wak of the
Algonquins. As for the Babines and the Chilcotins, they more commonly call
themselves and the entire family to which they belong Yinkhétceni and Neenkhai-
teeni respectively, that is, people of the universe, reserving the terms ’Qeetné
and (Enna (synonymous of Atna) for all the heterogeneous races, not of
European or Asiatic descent, with which they are in immediate contact.

To the western Dénés the whites are Neto; the French, Su-Neto, or
the true white men; the English, Sagenaz, a corruption of the Algonquin
Aganes' transformed into Saganas by the Saulteux intermediaries; the Ameri-
cans, Boston, from the town whence the first representatives of their nation
in British Columbia originated. The Crees and the Iroquois having appeared
west of the Rocky Mountains in company with the white traders, whose man-
ners they aped, were on that account reputed superior races and therefore
gratified with distinctive names, instead of the CEtna reserved for the Tsimp-
sians, the Tlinget and the Salish. The former are called T@sine (singular Teesin),
and the latter, Natoh (plur. Natohne), from the Algonquin Natowe.

The eastern Dénés dub the English Tsé-o’tinne, inhabitants of the rocks:
the Americans BestSorh-o’tinne, people of the big knives, and the French,
Banlay, “those to whom the earth belongs”. To the insulting epithet by which
the Eskimos call them, they retort by designating the latter Enna-khé and
Othel-na, meaning thereby foreign feet and the foreigners of the plains, though
Petitot is authority for the statement that the first of these appellations has
also a most opprobrious signification.

On the other hand, southern Dénés — by which expression | mean
here especially the Navahoes — know all the white men who are neither
Mexicans nor Spaniards as Belagana, a word which is a corruption of the
Spanish Americano. But the Mexicans are to them Naakai, white enemies
or foreigners, while the Spaniards, especially the original explorers of the
southern countries, are dignified with the designation Naakai-Diyini, the
Holy (or Supernatural) White Foreigners.

Habitat as represented by Various Maps.

As the Dénés are spread from the sunny plains of Mexico to the frozen
steppes of the Arctic circle and beyond, it is hardly necessary to remark that
their national landed patrimony is immense, and contains within its perimeter
the most varied stretches of land, under the most different climatic conditions,
resulting in proportionately dissimilar natural productions. The boundless and
too often dreary reaches of northern Canada and Alaska are their original
habitat, and have remained the home of the greatest number of tribes. For
this reason it behooves us to study with special care its real extent and

' This is no doubt the equivalent of the word “English” in the estimation of the eastern
Algonquins, whose language usually converts / into 7.