According to Brooks (Reconnaissance, 490-491), the Tanana natives were separated into two geographic contingents, the eastern or highland and the northwestern or lowland groups. The most easterly group included the Indian settlements in the vicinity of Forty-mile and Mentasta Pass trail; the northwestern comprises to-day those from Nenana to the mouth of the river. The Tanana Indians were generally regarded by other natives as warlike and dangerous, but so far as their relation with the whites was concerned there was little justification for this notion.[12] Physically they were reported by Brooks to "average rather better than the Indians of the Yukon" (Reconnaissance, 492). There are but a few and scanty other references to them in this connection. FOOTNOTES: [7] "Their numbers are supposed not to exceed 150 families." Alaska and Its Resources, p. 108. [8] Notes Alas. Ethn., 161. [9] Brooks, op. cit, 493. [10] Brooks, op. cit., 493. [11] Population, III, 1137. [12] See Castner, J. C., A Story of Hardship and Suffering in Alaska: Comp. Narr. Expl. Alaska, 686-709. INDIAN SITES AND VILLAGES ALONG THE TANANA _Upper course._--On this much larger part of the river it is possible to report but indirectly. A. H. Brooks, in 1898, reports thus on this subject:[13] "Several Indian houses are found on and near the Tanana between the Good-paster and Salchakat and constitute a subgroup of the upper Tanana Indians. * * * The most thickly settled part of the region is along the sluggish portions of the lower Tanana. The largest villages are at the mouth of the Cantwell and Toclat Rivers, and each of these consists of a number of good cabins. In the intervening region there are a number of isolated houses and fishing stations, which are marked on the accompanying map." [Illustration: FIGURE 1.--The Tanana River between Nenana and Tanana, with Indian villages] To which Lieutenant Castner, who explored the upper Tanana, adds the following:[14] "On 750 miles of the Tanana proper and its tributaries I saw seven small hamlets, and not to exceed 100 Indians--men, women, and children." From information obtained by me at Fairbanks, at the United States marshal's office and from miners, it appears that the following villages are better known: Village, 150 miles east of Fairbanks. Mansfield Lake village, 300 miles east of Fairbanks. Tetlen, 410 miles east of Fairbanks. East Tetlen, 7 miles southeast of Tetlen. FOOTNOTES: [13] Brooks, A. H., A Reconnaissance in the White and Tanana River Basins, Alaska, in 1898: Twentieth Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Surv., 1900, pt. VII, p. 491. [14] Castner, op. cit., p. 706. LOWER TANANA, NENANA TO YUKON No old sites were learned of on this part of the river, and few, if any, are probably preserved, due to lowness of banks and extensive destruction (cutting of the banks) by the river. The present Indian villages on the river are as follows: