TLIN'KIT (people), or KoLosti (Russ., from .Aleut kalosh, kaluga, little trough, in allusion to the enormous and peculiarly shaped labrets worn among them, especially by the Sitka). A group of tribes, of which the Chileat, Sitka, Stikine, and Yakutat are the most important. They constitute a distinct linguistic stock known as the Kolushan, occupying the coast and isl ands of Southern Alaska from Mount Saint Elias southward to the entrance of the Kass River. The Tlinkit are a seafaring people with strongly marked characteristics. Before the de moralization wrought by the advent of the white man they lived in permanent villages of solidly constructed houses built of massive beams and great planks of cedar, each with its tall totem pole in front, and with the earner posts also carved in totemic designs. Their canoes were hewn from cedar trunks, and their mats and cordage were woven from the bark fibre of the same tree. They were expert stone-carvers and copper-workers. They were enterprising traders and controlled the trade from the coast to the interior tribes, using dentalium shells as a currency medium and setting great store upon the acquisition of property. They had three clans, the Raven, Wolf, and Whale, with descent in the female line, but the chieftainship was elec tive, being usually accorded to the most generous distributor at the great ceremony of the pot latch (q.v.). Slavery was an established cus
tom, slaves from other tribes tieing a staple article of trade and treated by their masters with great cruelty. The dead were cremated, ex cepting in the ease of priests, whose bodies were wrapped in mats and deposited with their sacred belongings in grave houses perched upon com manding cliffs. Their principal mythologic hero was the Raven, who brought fire to the people and set the sun and moon in their courses. The flesh of the whale was tabooed, excepting among the Yakutat. They did not flatten the head. a, did the more southern tribes, but were addicted to labrets, which were considered marks of dis tinction and honor iu proportion to their size, the insertion of each successive larger labret be ing the occasion of a potlatch distribution. They were a warlike race, strong and well built, and regarded by the Russians as of superior intel lect, but have greatly deteriorated by contact with civilization. They may number now alto gether 5000, and derive a large part of their subsistence by labor in the salmon canneries. Consult Krause, Die Tlinkit India 11C)* (Jena, 18S5). See also SITKA ; YAKUTAT.