30 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

extends it, not unreasonably it would seem, as far as the Great Fish or Back
River!. In support of this last surmise, it is only necessary to remark that
they form the most northeastern of all the Déné tribes, and that, from Back’s
account of this part of the country, not only did they formerly frequent the
banks of that stream, but they even occasionally went as far as the mouth
of the same in their war excursions against the Eskimos?. They aggregate
some 1.150 souls forming three subdivisions: the Lintcanre of Fort Rae, the
Thakfwel-o’tinne, and the Tsé-o’tinne, ot rock people.
The explorer Thomas Simpson calls them a kind, inoffensive people,
and adds: “I noticed some fine faces among the younger men, and the women,
hough not so good-looking, have an affectionate and pleasing address’ ®.
17th. Then we have the Slaves (Déné) who, to the number of 1.100
individuals or thereabouts, inhabit the forests to the west of Great Slave Lake,
from Hay River inclusive; then along the Mackenzie from Fort Simpson to
Fort Norman. They are subdivided into five bands, according to the location
of their trade. These are the subtribes of Hay River, Trout Lake, Horn Moun-
tain, the forks of the Mackenzie, and Fort Norman. Als late as 1849 J. McLean
wrote that they mustered “between sixty and eighty men able to bear arms” ¢.
Franklin does not differentiate the Slaves from the Dog-Ribs. He there-
fore takes the Horn Mountain Indians to belong to the latter tribe, and says
that, in his time (1829), they mustered alone about 200 hunters®, According
to Mackenzie the Slaves were driven from their original home in the south
to the river that now bears their name, by the Crees, their hereditary ene-
mies®, Their great timidity is responsible for their distinctive name, though
Hooper attributes it to the heavy loads their women are made to carry’.
18th. The Yellow-Knives, who call themselves Déné, are known to most
of their congeners as Thatsan-o’tinne. They are the Copper Indians of Hearne
and the majority of the early English writers, the Red-Knives of Mackenzie
and Franklin®. The latter, who writes their name Tantsawhot-dinneh, fanci-
fully enough translates it Birch-rind Indians. He adds that, ‘according to their
own account, [they] inhabited the south side of Great Slave Lake at no very
distant period’ ®. Their population is not far from 500, though Franklin esti-

Ubi supra, p. 4.
“Narrative of the Arctic Land Expedition”, by Capt. Back, p. 198.
“Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America”, p. 92. London, 1843.
“Notes of a Twenty-Five Years’ Service”, vol. Ill, p. 256.
“Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea”, vol. Ill, p. 51.
“Voyage through the Continent of North America”, vol. I, jds WS,
“Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski”, p. 303. London, 1853.
It is not a little strange that the H. B. Co. map of 1857 should split the tribe in two,
as if to please both the English explorers and the French voyageurs. While it attributes the
southeast of Great Bear Lake to the “Copper” Indians, it reserves the northeast of Great Slave
Lake for the “Yellow-Knife” Indians.

° Ubi supra, p. 48.