Contents -- Preface -- Orthography -- Names of Communities in Denendeh -- 1. Horde, Band, and Tribe Seen From Denendeh, an Introduction -- Part I: Community and Livelihood at Midcentury -- 2. The Bush Community and Trading Fort at Midcentury -- The Bush Community -- The Trading Fort -- 3. The Yearly Round of the People of "Lynx Point," Jean Marie River, 1951-1952 -- The Household -- Living in and off the Land -- 4. Fish Consumption, Rabbit Uses, and Caribou Hunting among the Dogribs -- Fish Consumption -- Rabbits -- Caribou -- 5. The Security Quest at "Lynx Point," Jean Marie River, 1951-1952 -- Mode and Standard of Living -- Economic Problems -- Part II: Looking Back in Time -- 6. Changing Times -- Effects of the Highway, Rae, 1967 -- News of Jean Marie River After Twenty Years, 1951-1971 -- Current Styles and Material Possessions, Rae, 1971 -- 7. The Contact History of the Subarctic Athapaskans: An Overview -- Stages in Northern Athapaskan Contact History -- The Trading Post and the Mission -- Boom Frontier and Settled Frontier -- The Government-Commercial Era -- Epidemics and Population Patterns during the Contact-Traditional Stage -- 8. Overview Hearing at the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, 1975 -- Survey of Native Peoples and Linguistic Geography -- Contact History to World War II -- From World War II to the Present -- Concluding Overview -- 9. Moving Back through the Full Fur and Mission Period -- The Influenza Epidemic of 1928 -- Native Occupation and Status in the Fur Trade, 1900-1925 -- The Signing of Treaty No. 8 at Fort Resolution in 1900 -- The Mackenzie Soul Rush of the 1860s -- Naedzo Looks Back at the Old Days -- 10. Traditional Leadership -- The Historical Record -- Bosses, Leaders, and Trading Chiefs among the Dogribs -- Chiefly Succession among the Rae Dogribs, 1867-1971.

11. Female Infanticide, European Diseases, and Population Levels among the Mackenzie Dene -- Nineteenth-Century Observers' Statements on Female Infanticide -- Sources of Population Data, 1820s-1920s -- The Censuses of 1829, 1858, 1891, and 1924: Sex Ratios -- European Diseases and Population Levels -- Toward Population Models: Discussion and Definition of Terms -- Four Population Models -- Conclusion -- 12. Dogrib Oral Tradition as History: War and Peace in the 1820s -- Dogrib Oral Tradition -- Naedzo's Testimony -- Historicity in Naedzo's Testimony -- The Confrontation -- Akaitcho -- 13. Earliest Contacts -- Living off the Land with the Chipewyan Indians in 1791-1792 -- When the First Pale Men Came to Lac La Martre -- 14. Looking to the Future -- The Indian Brotherhood and the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry -- Dene Dependency and Dene Self-Determination -- Part III: Being Dene -- 15. Traditional Knowledge and Belief -- Three Understandings -- Four Legends -- 16. The Dogrib Hand Game -- Composition of the Game -- The Rules of Play -- The Hand Game in Dogrib Society -- Action in the Dogrib Hand Game: Photographs -- 17. Enjoyments and Special Times -- Fun and Deportment -- Brewing -- New Year at "Lynx Point" -- Festivities of Treaty Time in Rae -- Women's Work, Women's Art -- Ninhts'i Netsà -- 18. Being Dene -- Helene Rabesca, 1897 -1996 -- Louis Norwegian, 1907 -1977 -- Afterword -- A Note About the Contributors -- References Cited -- Index.