What little of the evil traffic
there has been was the work of free-traders. But the Royal Mounted
Police have most rigorously and effectually suppressed this.
Nevertheless, Chief Trader Anderson tells me that the Mackenzie
Valley tribes have fallen to less than half their numbers during
the last century.
It is about ten, years since they made the treaty that surrendered
their lands to the government. They have no reserves, but are free
to hunt as their fathers did.
I found several of the older men lamenting the degeneracy of
their people. "Our fathers were hunters and our mothers made good
moccasins, but the young men are lazy loafers around the trading
posts, and the women get money in bad ways to buy what they should
make with their hands."
The Chipewyan dialects are peculiarly rasping, clicking, and
guttural, especially when compared with Cree.
Every man and woman and most of the children among them smoke.
They habitually appear with a pipe in their mouth and speak without
removing it, so that the words gurgle out on each side of the pipe
while a thin stream goes sizzling through the stem. This additional
variant makes it hopeless to suggest on paper any approach to their
peculiar speech.
The Jesuits tell me that it was more clicked and guttural fifty
years ago, but that they are successfully weeding out many of the
more unpleasant catarrhal sounds.
In noting down the names of animals, I was struck by the fact that
the more familiar the animal the shorter its name. Thus the Beaver,
Muskrat, Rabbit, and Marten, on which they live, are respectively
Tsa, Dthen, Ka, and Tha. The less familiar (in a daily sense) Red
Fox and Weasel are Nak-ee-they, Noon-dee-a, Tel-ky-lay; and the
comparatively scarce Musk-ox and little Weasel, At-huh-le-jer-ray
and Tel-ky-lay-azzy. All of which is clear and logical, for the
name originally is a description, but the softer parts and sharp
angles are worn down by the attrition of use - the more use they
have for a word the shorter it is bound to get. In this connection
it is significant that "to-day" is To-ho-chin-nay, and "to-morrow"
Kom-pay.
The Chipewyan teepee is very distinctive; fifty years ago all were
of caribou leather, now most are of cotton; not for lack of caribou,
but because the cotton does not need continual watching to save it
from the dogs. Of the fifty teepees at Fort Chipewyan, one or two
only were of caribou but many had caribou-skin tops, as these are
less likely to bum than those of cotton.
The way they manage the smoke is very clever; instead of the two
fixed flaps, as among the Plains River Indians, these have a separate
hood which is easily set on any side (see III). Chief Squirrel lives
in a lodge that is an admirable combination of the white men's tent
with its weather-proof roof and the Indian teepee with its cosy
fire.
