Note 65 — Chapter IV

Of the origin of the name Chip-pe-wi-yan, by which, since Hearne and M’Kenzie, these people have been called, it may now be difficult to give any satisfactory account. A very intelligent person among the Ojibbeways asserts, that the name is derived from that language, and is only a vicious pronunciation of the compound word O-jee-gwi-yan, which means the skin of the fisher weasel. But the Chip-pe-wi-yans, in their own country, have no knowledge of the animal, and it is not easy to imagine how the name of its skin should have been fixed upon by them as a distinctive appellation. They are called by the Canadians, and many white men residing in the Athavasca country, “Mountaineers,” which appellation they derive from the country of bleak and snowy rocks, which they inhabit. Tanner thinks the name O-jee-gwi-yah-nug may be derived from a word which means, “To pierce with an awl a fold of skin.”