The Indians of the Rocky Mountains burn with the deceased all his effects, and even those of his nearest relatives, so that it not unfrequently happens that a family is reduced to absolute starvation in the dead of winter, when it is impossible to procure food. The motive assigned to this custom is, that there may be nothing left to bring the dead to remembrance.
A singular custom prevails among the Nateotetain women, which is to cut off one joint of a finger upon the death of a near relative. In consequence of this practice some old women may be seen with two joints off every finger on both hands. The men bear their sorrows more stoically, being content in such cases with shaving the head and cutting their flesh with flints.214
The Kutchins are the flower of the Tinneh family. They are very numerous, numbering about twenty-two tribes. They are a more noble and manly people than either the Eskimos upon the north or the contiguous Tinneh tribes upon their own southern boundary. The finest specimens dwell on the Yukon River. The women tattoo the chin with a black pigment, and the men draw a black stripe down the forehead and nose, frequently crossing the forehead and cheeks with red lines, and streaking the chin alternately with red and black. Their features are more regular than those of their neighbors, more expressive of boldness, frankness, and candor; their foreheads higher, and their complexions lighter. The Tenan Kutchin of the Tananah River, one of the largest tribes of the Yukon Valley, are somewhat wilder and more ferocious in their appearance. The boys are precocious, and the girls marry at fifteen.215 The Kutchins of Peel River, as observed by Mr Isbister, "are an athletic and fine-looking race; considerable above the average stature, most of them being upwards of six feet in height and remarkably well proportioned."
Their clothing is made from the skins of reindeer, dressed with the hair on; their coat cut after the fashion of the Eskimos, with skirts peaked before and behind, and elaborately trimmed with beads and dyed porcupine-quills. The Kutchins, in common with the Eskimos, are distinguished by a similarity in the costume of the sexes. Men and women wear the same description of breeches. Some of the men have a long flap attached to their deer-skin shirts, shaped like a beaver's tail, and reaching nearly to the ground.216 Of the coat, Mr Whymper says: "If the reader will imagine a man dressed in two swallow-tailed coats, one of them worn as usual, the other covering his stomach and buttoned behind, he will get some idea of this garment." Across the shoulders and breast they wear a broad band of beads, with narrower bands round the forehead and ankles, and along the seams of their leggins. They are great traders; beads are their wealth, used in the place of money, and the rich among them literally load themselves with necklaces and strings of various patterns.217 The nose and ears are adorned with shells.218 The hair is worn in a long cue, ornamented with feathers, and bound with strings of beads and shells at the head, with flowing ends, and so saturated with grease and birds' down as to swell it sometimes to the thickness of the neck. They pay considerable attention to personal cleanliness. The Kutchins construct both permanent underground dwellings and the temporary summer-hut or tent.219
On the Yukon, the greatest scarcity of food is in the spring. The winter's stores are exhausted, and the bright rays of the sun upon the melting snow almost blind the eyes of the deer-hunter. The most plentiful supply of game is in August, September, and October, after which the forming of ice on the rivers prevents fishing until December, when the winter traps are set. The reindeer are in good condition in August, and geese are plentiful. Salmon ascend the river in June, and are taken in great quantities until about the first of September; fish are dried or smoked without salt, for winter use. Fur-hunting begins in October; and in December, trade opens with the Eskimos, with whom furs are exchanged for oil and seal-skins.
The Kutchin of the Yukon are unacquainted with nets, but catch their fish by means of weirs or stakes planted across rivers and narrow lakes, having openings for wicker baskets, by which they intercept the fish. They hunt reindeer in the mountains and take moose-deer in snares.220
Both Kutchins and Eskimos are very jealous regarding their boundaries; but the incessant warfare which is maintained between the littoral and interior people of the northern coast near the Mackenzie river, is not maintained by the north-western tribes. One of either people, however, if found hunting out of his own territory, is very liable to be shot. Some Kutchin tribes permit the Eskimos to take the meat of the game which they kill, provided they leave the skin at the nearest village.221
The Kutchins of the Yukon River manufacture cups and pots from clay, and ornament them with crosses, dots, and lines; moulding them by hand after various patterns, first drying them in the sun and then baking them. The Eskimo lamp is also sometimes made of clay. The Tinneh make paint of pulverized colored stones or of earth, mixed with glue. The glue is made from buffalo feet and applied by a moose-hair brush.
In the manufacture of their boats the Kutchins of the Yukon use bark as a substitute for the seal-skins of the coast. They first make a light frame of willow or birch, from eight to sixteen feet in length. Then with fine spruce-fir roots they sew together strips of birch bark, cover the frame, and calk the seams with spruce gum. They are propelled by single paddles or poles. Those of the Mackenzie River are after the same pattern.222
In absence of law, murder and all other crimes are compounded for.223 A man to be well married must be either rich or strong. A good hunter, who can accumulate beads, and a good wrestler, who can win brides by force, may have from two to five wives. The women perform all domestic duties, and eat after the husband is satisfied, but the men paddle the boats, and have even been known to carry their wives ashore so that they might not wet their feet. The women carry their infants in a sort of bark saddle, fastened to their back; they bandage their feet in order to keep them small.224 Kutchin amusements are wrestling, leaping, dancing, and singing. They are great talkers, and etiquette forbids any interruption to the narrative of a new comer.225
The Tenan Kutchin, 'people of the mountains,' inhabiting the country south of Fort Yukon which is drained by the river Tananah, are a wild, ungovernable horde, their territory never yet having been invaded by white people. The river upon which they dwell is supposed to take its rise near the upper Yukon. They allow no women in their deer-hunting expeditions. They smear their leggins and hair with red ochre and grease. The men part their hair in the middle and separate it into locks, which, when properly dressed, look like rolls of red mud about the size of a finger; one bunch of locks is secured in a mass which falls down the neck, by a band of dentalium shells, and two smaller rolls hang down either side of the face. After being soaked in grease and tied, the head is powdered with finely cut swan's down, which adheres to the greasy hair. The women wear few ornaments, perform more than the ordinary amount of drudgery, and are treated more like dogs than human beings. Chastity is scarcely known among them. The Kutcha Kutchin, 'people of the lowland,' are cleaner and better mannered.
The Kutchins have a singular system of totems. The whole nation is divided into three castes, called respectively Chitcheah, Tengratsey, and Natsahi, each occupying a distinct territory. Two persons of the same caste are not allowed to marry; but a man of one caste must marry a woman of another. The mother gives caste to the children, so that as the fathers die off the caste of the country constantly changes. This system operates strongly against war between tribes; as in war, it is caste