Page:The American Indian.djvu/269

Rh game; the use of spruce and birchbark for vessels and canoes; basketry of split spruce root (watap) for cooking with hot stones, noted by early observers; the toboggan; in summer the use of babiche; the short-handled stone adze; iron pyrites instead of the firedrill and fungus for touchwood; the use of the cache; and, above all, dependence upon the caribou; a tendency toward the simplest kind of social grouping; prominence of shamanism and weakness of ritualism. These seem to be the most characteristic traits of the Déné as a whole, and, while neither numerous nor complex, are still quite distinctive.

In discussing this area, some writers have commented upon the relative poverty of distinctive traits and the preponderance of borrowed, or intrusive ones. For example, the double lean-to is peculiarly their own, though used slightly in parts of the Plateau area; but among the southwestern Déné we frequently find houses, like those of the simshian, among the Babine and northern Carrier; while the Sekanais and southern Carrier use the underground houses of the Salish; and among the Chipewyan, Beaver, and most of the eastern group, the skin or bark-covered tipi of the Cree is common. Similar differences have been noted in costume and such social traits as clans and property distinctions, in the west. Pemmican, a specialty of the eastern Indians, was made by the eastern Déné. According to Hearne some of the eastern Déné painted their shields with Plains-like devices, and in the northwestern group we find some sleds of Eskimo pattern. Such borrowing of traits from other areas is, however, not peculiar to the Déné, and while it may be more prevalent among them, it should be noted that our best available data are from tribes marginal to the area. It is just in the geographical center of this area that good data so far fail us. Therefore, the inference is that there is a distinct type of Déné culture, and that their lack of individuality has been over-estimated.

7. Eastern Woodland Area. We come now to the so-called Eastern Woodland area, the characterization of which is difficult. As just noted, its northern border extends to the Arctic,