The author's thanks are due to Dr. A. L. Kroeber and Dr. R. F. Heizer, who gave their full coöperation throughout the preparation of the present paper. Dr. Henry Sheffé was kind enough to advise on the statistics used in the section on population. ATHABASCAN CULTURE The following sketch of Athabascan culture attempts to provide some background for the later discussion of the various groups. In this sketch I have not used the material from the Hupa, since they are virtually identical with the Yurok and not at all typical of the more southern Athabascans. _Subsistence._--For information on Athabascan economy I have relied heavily on Essene's account of the Lassik (1942, p. 84). There was, no doubt, variation among the different groups, but for the most part, they must have followed a similar pattern. The most difficult time in the annual cycle of food production was winter. There were then few fish and almost no game animals or crops for gathering. From late November to early March people had to rely on food that had been stored the previous year. Essene's informant said that about every four or five years there would be a hard winter, but she could remember only one when people actually starved to death. In February or March the spring salmon run began, and after that the danger of starvation was past. At about this time the grass began to grow again, and the first clover was eaten ravenously because of the dearth of greens during the winter. The herb-gathering and salmon-fishing activity lasted until the spring rains ended in April or May, when the people left their villages on the salmon streams and scattered out into the hills for the summer. Usually only a few families would stay together during the summer, while the men hunted deer, squirrels, and other animals and the women gathered clover, seeds, roots, and nuts. Food was most plentiful at this season, and the places visited varied with the abundance of different crops. If a certain crop was good, the Indians would spend more time that summer in the area where the crop grew best. The next year they might go somewhere else. The vegetation of the Athabascan habitat is not well enough mapped to permit a precise delineation of these various summer camping grounds. In September or October, when the acorns were ripe, the Indians would return to their winter villages and smoke meat for storing and probably store the acorns. Each family built a new house to protect it from the heavy winter rains. After the first rain in the fall the salmon run again in some of the streams of the region and were caught and smoked for winter storage.