takelly

Updated: May 16, 2025

There are four varieties of salmon, distinguished from each other by the peculiar form of the head; the largest species seems to be the same we have in the rivers of Britain, and weighs from ten to twenty pounds; the others do not exceed half that weight. New Caledonia is inhabited by the Takelly or Carrier nation, and by a few families of Tsekanies on the north-eastern extremity of the district.

John McLean - Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory: Volume I.

I have heard a heathen Ojibbeway, when giving a feast, express himself thus: "The great Master of Life, he who sees us and whom we cannot see, having done me charity, I invite you, my brother, to partake of it." On a like occasion, a Takelly describes the manner in which he killed his game, but never alludes to a deity.

John McLean - Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory: Volume I.

The Ojibbeway answers, "After death my soul goes either to a happy land, abounding with game and every delight; or to a land of misery, where I shall suffer for ever from want. Whether it go to the good or bad place depends on my good or bad conduct here." In fact the Takelly language has not a term in it to express the name of Deity, spirit, or soul.

John McLean - Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory: Volume I.

When an Ojibbeway wishes to confirm the truth of what he says beyond a doubt, he points to heaven and exclaims, "He to whom we belong hears that what I say is true." The Takelly says, "The toad hears me." You ask a Takelly what becomes of him after death, he replies, "My life shall be extinct, and I shall be dead." Not an idea has he of the soul, or of a future state of rewards and punishments.

John McLean - Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory: Volume I.

The Takelly, or Carrier language is a dialect of the Chippewayan; and it is rather a singular fact, that the two intervening dialects of the Beaver Indians and Tsekanies, kindred nations, should differ more from the Chippewayan than the Carrier; the two latter nations being perfectly intelligible to each other, while the former are but very imperfectly understood by their immediate neighbours, the Chippewayans.

John McLean - Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory: Volume I.