Indian Linguistic Families of America, North of Mexico
by John Wesley Powell · English · Gutenberg #17286 · 487,199 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Indian Linguistic Families of America, North of Mexico
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Indian Linguistic Families of America, North of Mexico
Author: John Wesley Powell
Release date: December 12, 2005 [eBook #17286]
Most recently updated: December 13, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17286
Credits: Produced by Louise Hope, Carlo Traverso, the Library of
Congress Geography and Map Division, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. This
file was produced from images generously made available
by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at
http://gallica.bnf.fr
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDIAN LINGUISTIC FAMILIES OF AMERICA, NORTH OF MEXICO ***
Produced by Louise Hope, Carlo Traverso, the Library of
Congress Geography and Map Division, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. This
file was produced from images generously made available
by the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at
http://gallica.bnf.fr
[Transcriber's Note:
This text is intended for readers who cannot use the "real" (unicode,
utf-8) version of the file or even the simplified Latin-1 form. Letters
that could not be shown accurately have been "unpacked" and shown in
brackets:
['] syllable stress (angled line similar t acute accent)
[-A] [-a] [-e] ... vowel with macron
[vA] [va] [ve] ... vowel with breve _or_ hacek (see below)
[.z] dot above letter
[eo] e with small ring _under_ it
['a] ['e] ['s] ... [^a] [^e] ... [`a] [`e] letter with accent
(acute, circumflex, grave; accents on European names are generally
not marked)
[:a] letter with dieresis or umlaut
[t_] [l_] underlined letter
[ch] (Greek) chi
[K] [S] [k] [t] upside-down letters
[n] small superscript n
c with cedilla and n with tilde have been reduced to c and n
Where this "unpacking" results in an unreadable word, a simplified form
has been added in brackets with an asterisk: [*Unugun].
In the printed text it is not clear whether the author intended
hacek (Unicode "caron", angled) or breve (curved). Breve was used in
the utf-8 versions of this document, as it is phonetically plausible
and the characters are more widely available. Hacek is used here
because the bracketed form [va] is less ambiguous visually than the
breve [)a].]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
INDIAN LINGUISTIC FAMILIES OF AMERICA
NORTH OF MEXICO.
by
J. W. POWELL.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
Nomenclature of linguistic families 7
Literature relating to the classification of Indian languages 12
Linguistic map 25
Indian tribes sedentary 30
Population 33
Tribal land 40
Village sites 40
Agricultural land 41
Hunting claims 42
Summary of deductions 44
Linguistic families 45
Adaizan family 45
Algonquian family 47
Algonquian area 47
Principal Algonquian tribes 48
Population 48
Athapascan family 51
Boundaries 52
Northern group 53
Pacific group 53
Southern group 54
Principal tribes 55
Population 55
Attacapan family 56
Beothuakan family 57
Geographic distribution 58
Caddoan family 58
Northern group 60
Middle group 60
Southern group 60
Principal tribes 61
Population 62
Chimakuan family 62
Principal tribes 63
Chimarikan family 63
Principal tribes 63
Chimmesyan family 63
Principal tribes or villages 64
Population 64
Chinookan family 65
Principal tribes 66
Population 66
Chitimachan family 66
Chumashan family 67
Population 68
Coahuiltecan family 68
Principal tribes 69
Copehan family 69
Geographic distribution 69
Principal tribes 70
Costanoan family 70
Geographic distribution 71
Population 71
Eskimauan family 71
Geographic distribution 72
Principal tribes and villages 74
Population 74
Esselenian family 75
Iroquoian family 76
Geographic distribution 77
Principal tribes 79
Population 79
Kalapooian family 81
Principal tribes 82
Population 82
Karankawan family 82
Keresan family 83
Villages 83
Population 83
Kiowan family 84
Population 84
Kitunahan family 85
Tribes 85
Population 85
Koluschan family 85
Tribes 87
Population 87
Kulanapan family 87
Geographic distribution 88
Tribes 88
Kusan family 89
Tribes 89
Population 89
Lutuamian family 89
Tribes 90
Population 90
Mariposan family 90
Geographic distribution 91
Tribes 91
Population 91
Moquelumnan family 92
Geographic distribution 93
Principal tribes 93
Population 93
Muskhogean family 94
Geographic distribution 94
Principal tribes 95
Population 95
Natchesan family 95
Principal tribes 97
Population 97
Palaihnihan family 97
Geographic distribution 98
Principal tribes 98
Piman family 98
Principal tribes 99
Population 99
Pujunan family 99
Geographic distribution 100
Principal tribes 100
Quoratean family 100
Geographic distribution 101
Tribes 101
Population 101
Salinan family 101
Population 102
Salishan family 102
Geographic distribution 104
Principal tribes 104
Population 105
Sastean family 105
Geographic distribution 106
Shahaptian family 106
Geographic distribution 107
Principal tribes and population 107
Shoshonean family 108
Geographic distribution 109
Principal tribes and population 110
Siouan family 111
Geographic distribution 112
Principal tribes 114
Population 116
Skittagetan family 118
Geographic distribution 120
Principal tribes 120
Population 121
Takilman family 121
Geographic distribution 121
Tanoan family 121
Geographic distribution 122
Population 123
Timuquanan family 123
Geographic distribution 123
Principal tribes 124
Tonikan family 125
Geographic distribution 125
Tonkawan family 125
Geographic distribution 126
Uchean family 126
Geographic distribution 126
Population 127
Waiilatpuan family 127
Geographic distribution 127
Principal tribes 127
Population 128
Wakashan family 128
Geographic distribution 130
Principal Aht tribes 130
Population 130
Principal Haeltzuk tribes 131
Population 131
Washoan family 131
Weitspekan family 131
Geographic distribution 132
Tribes 132
Wishoskan family 132
Geographic distribution 133
Tribes 133
Yakonan family 133
Geographic distribution 134
Tribes 134
Population 135
Yanan family 135
Geographic distribution 135
Yukian family 135
Geographic distribution 136
Yuman family 136
Geographic distribution 137
Principal tribes 138
Population 138
Zunian family 138
Geographic distribution 139
Population 139
Concluding remarks 139
ILLUSTRATION
Plate I. Map. Linguistic stocks of North America north of Mexico.
In pocket at end of volume
[Transcriber's Note:
The Map is available in the "images" directory accompanying the html
version of this file. There are two sizes in addition to the thumbnail:
mapsmall.jpg: 615x732 pixels (about 9x11 in / 23x28 cm, 168K)
maplarge.jpg: 1521x1818 pixels (about 22x27 in / 56x70 cm, 1MB) ]
* * * * *
INDIAN LINGUISTIC FAMILIES.
By J. W. POWELL.
* * * * *
NOMENCLATURE OF LINGUISTIC FAMILIES.
The languages spoken by the pre-Columbian tribes of North America were
many and diverse. Into the regions occupied by these tribes travelers,
traders, and missionaries have penetrated in advance of civilization,
and civilization itself has marched across the continent at a rapid
rate. Under these conditions the languages of the various tribes have
received much study. Many extensive works have been published,
embracing grammars and dictionaries; but a far greater number of minor
vocabularies have been collected and very many have been published. In
addition to these, the Bible, in whole or in part, and various religious
books and school books, have been translated into Indian tongues to be
used for purposes of instruction; and newspapers have been published in
the Indian languages. Altogether the literature of these languages and
that relating to them are of vast extent.
While the materials seem thus to be abundant, the student of Indian
languages finds the subject to be one requiring most thoughtful
consideration, difficulties arising from the following conditions:
(1) A great number of linguistic stocks or families are discovered.
(2) The boundaries between the different stocks of languages are not
immediately apparent, from the fact that many tribes of diverse stocks
have had more or less association, and to some extent linguistic
materials have been borrowed, and thus have passed out of the exclusive
possession of cognate peoples.
(3) Where many peoples, each few in number, are thrown together, an
intertribal language is developed. To a large extent this is gesture
speech; but to a limited extent useful and important words are adopted
by various tribes, and out of this material an intertribal "jargon" is
established. Travelers and all others who do not thoroughly study a
language are far more likely to acquire this jargon speech than the real
speech of the people; and the tendency to base relationship upon such
jargons has led to confusion.
(4) This tendency to the establishment of intertribal jargons was
greatly accelerated on the advent of the white man, for thereby many
tribes were pushed from their ancestral homes and tribes were mixed with
tribes. As a result, new relations and new industries, especially of
trade, were established, and the new associations of tribe with tribe
and of the Indians with Europeans led very often to the development of
quite elaborate jargon languages. All of these have a tendency to
complicate the study of the Indian tongues by comparative methods.
The difficulties inherent in the study of languages, together with the
imperfect material and the complicating conditions that have arisen by
the spread of civilization over the country, combine to make the problem
one not readily solved.
In view of the amount of material on hand, the comparative study of the
languages of North America has been strangely neglected, though perhaps
this is explained by reason of the difficulties which have been pointed
out. And the attempts which have been made to classify them has given
rise to much confusion, for the following reasons: First, later authors
have not properly recognized the work of earlier laborers in the field.
Second, the attempt has more frequently been made to establish an ethnic
classification than a linguistic classification, and linguistic
characteristics have been confused with biotic peculiarities, arts,
habits, customs, and other human activities, so that radical differences
of language have often been ignored and slight differences have been
held to be of primary value.
The attempts at a classification of these languages and a corresponding
classification of races have led to the development of a complex, mixed,
and inconsistent synonymy, which must first be unraveled and a selection
of standard names made therefrom according to fixed principles.
It is manifest that until proper rules are recognized by scholars the
establishment of a determinate nomenclature is impossible. It will
therefore be well to set forth the rules that have here been adopted,
together with brief reasons for the same, with the hope that they will
commend themselves to the judgment of other persons engaged in
researches relating to the languages of North America.
A fixed nomenclature in biology has been found not only to be
advantageous, but to be a prerequisite to progress in research, as the
vast multiplicity of facts, still ever accumulating, would otherwise
overwhelm the scholar. In philological classification fixity of
nomenclature is of corresponding importance; and while the analogies
between linguistic and biotic classification are quite limited, many of
the principles of nomenclature which biologists have adopted having no
application in philology, still in some important particulars the
requirements of all scientific classifications are alike, and though
many of the nomenclatural points met with in biology will not occur in
philology, some of them do occur and may be governed by the same rules.
Perhaps an ideal nomenclature in biology may some time be established,
as attempts have been made to establish such a system in chemistry; and
possibly such an ideal system may eventually be established in
philology. Be that as it may, the time has not yet come even for its
suggestion. What is now needed is a rule of some kind leading scholars
to use the same terms for the same things, and it would seem to matter
little in the case of linguistic stocks what the nomenclature is,
provided it becomes denotive and universal.
In treating of the languages of North America it has been suggested that
the names adopted should be the names by which the people recognize
themselves, but this is a rule of impossible application, for where the
branches of a stock diverge very greatly no common name for the people
can be found. Again, it has been suggested that names which are to go
permanently into science should be simple and euphonic. This also is
impossible of application, for simplicity and euphony are largely
questions of personal taste, and he who has studied many languages loses
speedily his idiosyncrasies of likes and dislikes and learns that words
foreign to his vocabulary are not necessarily barbaric.
Biologists have decided that he who first distinctly characterizes and
names a species or other group shall thereby cause the name thus used to
become permanently affixed, but under certain conditions adapted to a
growing science which is continually revising its classifications. This
law of priority may well be adopted by philologists.
By the application of the law of priority it will occasionally happen
that a name must be taken which is not wholly unobjectionable or which
could be much improved. But if names may be modified for any reason, the
extent of change that may be wrought in this manner is unlimited, and
such modifications would ultimately become equivalent to the
introduction of new names, and a fixed nomenclature would thereby be
overthrown. The rule of priority has therefore been adopted.
Permanent biologic nomenclature dates from the time of Linnaeus simply
because this great naturalist established the binominal system and
placed scientific classification upon a sound and enduring basis. As
Linnaeus is to be regarded as the founder of biologic classification, so
Gallatin may be considered the founder of systematic philology relating
to the North American Indians. Before his time much linguistic work had
been accomplished, and scholars owe a lasting debt of gratitude to
Barton, Adelung, Pickering, and others. But Gallatin's work marks an era
in American linguistic science from the fact that he so thoroughly
introduced comparative methods, and because he circumscribed the
boundaries of many families, so that a large part of his work remains
and is still to be considered sound. There is no safe resting place
anterior to Gallatin, because no scholar prior to his time had properly
adopted comparative methods of research, and because no scholar was
privileged to work with so large a body of material. It must further be
said of Gallatin that he had a very clear conception of the task he was
performing, and brought to it both learning and wisdom. Gallatin's work
has therefore been taken as the starting point, back of which we may not
go in the historic consideration of the systematic philology of North
America. The point of departure therefore is the year 1836, when
Gallatin's "Synopsis of Indian Tribes" appeared in vol. 2 of the
Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society.
It is believed that a name should be simply a denotive word, and that no
advantage can accrue from a descriptive or connotive title. It is
therefore desirable to have the names as simple as possible, consistent
with other and more important considerations. For this reason it has
been found impracticable to recognize as family names designations based
on several distinct terms, such as descriptive phrases, and words
compounded from two or more geographic names. Such phrases and compound
words have been rejected.
There are many linguistic families in North America, and in a number of
them there are many tribes speaking diverse languages. It is important,
therefore, that some form should be given to the family name by which it
may be distinguished from the name of a single tribe or language. In
many cases some one language within a stock has been taken as the type
and its name given to the entire family; so that the name of a language
and that of the stock to which it belongs are identical. This is
inconvenient and leads to confusion. For such reasons it has been
decided to give each family name the termination "an" or "ian."
Conforming to the principles thus enunciated, the following rules have
been formulated:
I. The law of priority relating to the nomenclature of the
systematic philology of the North American tribes shall not extend
to authors whose works are of date anterior to the year 1836.
II. The name originally given by the founder of a linguistic group
to designate it as a family or stock of languages shall be
permanently retained to the exclusion of all others.
III. No family name shall be recognized if composed of more than one
word.
IV. A family name once established shall not be canceled in any
subsequent division of the group, but shall be retained in a
restricted sense for one of its constituent portions.
V. Family names shall be distinguished as such by the termination
"an" or "ian."
VI. No name shall be accepted for a linguistic family unless used to
designate a tribe or group of tribes as a linguistic stock.
VII. No family name shall be accepted unless there is given the
habitat of tribe or tribes to which it is applied.
VIII. The original orthography of a name shall be rigidly preserved
except as provided for in rule III, and unless a typographical error
is evident.
The terms "family" and "stock" are here applied interchangeably to a
group of languages that are supposed to be cognate.
A single language is called a stock or family when it is not found to be
cognate with any other language. Languages are said to be cognate when
such relations between them are found that they are supposed to have
descended from a common ancestral speech. The evidence of cognation is
derived exclusively from the vocabulary. Grammatic similarities are not
supposed to furnish evidence of cognation, but to be phenomena, in part
relating to stage of culture and in part adventitious. It must be
remembered that extreme peculiarities of grammar, like the vocal
mutations of the Hebrew or the monosyllabic separation of the Chinese,
have not been discovered among Indian tongues. It therefore becomes
necessary in the classification of Indian languages into families to
neglect grammatic structure, and to consider lexical elements only. But
this statement must be clearly understood. It is postulated that in the
growth of languages new words are formed by combination, and that these
new words change by attrition to secure economy of utterance, and also
by assimilation (analogy) for economy of thought. In the comparison of
languages for the purposes of systematic philology it often becomes
necessary to dismember compounded words for the purpose of comparing the
more primitive forms thus obtained. The paradigmatic words considered in
grammatic treatises may often be the very words which should be
dissected to discover in their elements primary affinities. But the
comparison is still lexic, not grammatic.
A lexic comparison is between vocal elements; a grammatic comparison is
between grammatic methods, such, for example, as gender systems. The
classes into which things are relegated by distinction of gender may be
animate and inanimate, and the animate may subsequently be divided into
male and female, and these two classes may ultimately absorb, in part at
least, inanimate things. The growth of a system of genders may take
another course. The animate and inanimate may be subdivided into the
standing, the sitting, and the lying, or into the moving, the erect and
the reclined; or, still further, the superposed classification may be
based upon the supposed constitution of things, as the fleshy, the
woody, the rocky, the earthy, the watery. Thus the number of genders may
increase, while further on in the history of a language the genders may
decrease so as almost to disappear. All of these characteristics are in
part adventitious, but to a large extent the gender is a phenomenon of
growth, indicating the stage to which the language has attained. A
proper case system may not have been established in a language by the
fixing of case particles, or, having been established, it may change by
the increase or diminution of the number of cases. A tense system also
has a beginning, a growth, and a decadence. A mode system is variable in
the various stages of the history of a language. In like manner a
pronominal system undergoes changes. Particles may be prefixed, infixed,
or affixed in compounded words, and which one of these methods will
finally prevail can be determined only in the later stage of growth. All
of these things are held to belong to the grammar of a language and to
be grammatic methods, distinct from lexical elements.
With terms thus defined, languages are supposed to be cognate when
fundamental similarities are discovered in their lexical elements. When
the members of a family of languages are to be classed in subdivisions
and the history of such languages investigated, grammatic
characteristics become of primary importance. The words of a language
change by the methods described, but the fundamental elements or roots
are more enduring. Grammatic methods also change, perhaps even more
rapidly than words, and the changes may go on to such an extent that
primitive methods are entirely lost, there being no radical grammatic
elements to be preserved. Grammatic structure is but a phase or accident
of growth, and not a primordial element of language. The roots of a
language are its most permanent characteristics, and while the words
which are formed from them may change so as to obscure their elements or
in some cases even to lose them, it seems that they are never lost from
all, but can be recovered in large part. The grammatic structure or plan
of a language is forever changing, and in this respect the language may
become entirely transformed.
* * * * *
LITERATURE RELATING TO THE CLASSIFICATION
OF INDIAN LANGUAGES.
While the literature relating to the languages of North America is very
extensive, that which relates to their classification is much less
extensive. For the benefit of future students in this line it is thought
best to present a concise account of such literature, or at least so
much as has been consulted in the preparation of this paper.
1836. Gallatin (Albert).
A synopsis of the Indian tribes within the United States east of the
Rocky Mountains, and in the British and Russian possessions in North
America. In Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian
Society (Archaeologia Americana) Cambridge, 1836, vol. 2.
The larger part of the volume consists of Gallatin's paper. A short
chapter is devoted to general observations, including certain historical
data, and the remainder to the discussion of linguistic material and the
affinities of the various tribes mentioned. Vocabularies of many of the
families are appended. Twenty-eight linguistic divisions are recognized
in the general table of the tribes. Some of these divisions are purely
geographic, such as the tribes of Salmon River, Queen Charlotte's
Island, etc. Vocabularies from these localities were at hand, but of
their linguistic relations the author was not sufficiently assured. Most
of the linguistic families recognized by Gallatin were defined with much
precision. Not all of his conclusions are to be accepted in the presence
of the data now at hand, but usually they were sound, as is attested by
the fact that they have constituted the basis for much classificatory
work since his time.
The primary, or at least the ostensible, purpose of the colored map
which accompanies Gallatin's paper was, as indicated by its title, to
show the distribution of the tribes, and accordingly their names appear
upon it, and not the names of the linguistic families. Nevertheless, it
is practically a map of the linguistic families as determined by the
author, and it is believed to be the first attempted for the area
represented. Only eleven of the twenty-eight families named in this
table appear, and these represent the families with which he was best
acquainted. As was to be expected from the early period at which the map
was constructed, much of the western part of the United States was left
uncolored. Altogether the map illustrates well the state of knowledge of
the time.
1840. Bancroft (George).
History of the colonization of the United States, Boston. 1840,
vol. 3.
In Chapter XXII of this volume the author gives a brief synopsis of the
Indian tribes east of the Mississippi, under a linguistic
classification, and adds a brief account of the character and methods of
Indian languages. A linguistic map of the region is incorporated, which
in general corresponds with the one published by Gallatin in 1836. A
notable addition to the Gallatin map is the inclusion of the Uchees in
their proper locality. Though considered a distinct family by Gallatin,
this tribe does not appear upon his map. Moreover, the Choctaws and
Muskogees, which appear as separate families upon Gallatin's map (though
believed by that author to belong to the same family), are united upon
Bancroft's map under the term Mobilian.
The linguistic families treated of are, I. Algonquin, II. Sioux or
Dahcota, III. Huron-Iroquois, IV. Catawba, V. Cherokee, VI. Uchee, VII.
Natchez, VIII. Mobilian.
1841. Scouler (John).
Observations of the indigenous tribes of the northwest coast of
America. In Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London.
London, 1841, vol. 11.
The chapter cited is short, but long enough to enable the author to
construct a very curious classification of the tribes of which he
treats. In his account Scouler is guided chiefly, to use his own words,
"by considerations founded on their physical character, manners and
customs, and on the affinities of their languages." As the linguistic
considerations are mentioned last, so they appear to be the least
weighty of his "considerations."
Scouler's definition of a family is very broad indeed, and in his
"Northern Family," which is a branch of his "Insular Group," he includes
such distinct linguistic stocks as "all the Indian tribes in the Russian
territory," the Queen Charlotte Islanders, Koloshes, Ugalentzes, Atnas,
Kolchans, Ken['a][:i]es, Tun Ghaase, Haidahs, and Chimmesyans. His
Nootka-Columbian family is scarcely less incongruous, and it is evident
that the classification indicated is only to a comparatively slight
extent linguistic.
1846. Hale (Horatio).
United States exploring expedition, during the years 1838, 1839, 1840,
1841, 1842, under the command of Charles Wilkes, U.S. Navy, vol. 6,
ethnography and philology. Philadelphia, 1846.
In addition to a large amount of ethnographic data derived from the
Polynesian Islands, Micronesian Islands, Australia, etc., more than
one-half of this important volume is devoted to philology, a large share
relating to the tribes of northwestern America.
The vocabularies collected by Hale, and the conclusions derived by him
from study of them, added much to the previous knowledge of the
languages of these tribes. His conclusions and classification were in
the main accepted by Gallatin in his linguistic writings of 1848.
1846. Latham (Robert Gordon).
Miscellaneous contributions to the ethnography of North America. In
Proceedings of the Philological Society of London. London, 1816,
vol. 2.
In this article, which was read before the Philological Society, January
24, 1845, a large number of North American languages are examined and
their affinities discussed in support of the two following postulates
made at the beginning of the paper: First, "No American language has an
isolated position when compared with the other tongues en masse rather
than with the language of any particular class;" second, "The affinities
between the language of the New World, as determined by their
_vocabularies_, is not less real than that inferred from the analogies
of their _grammatical structure_." The author's conclusions are that
both statements are substantiated by the evidence presented. The paper
contains no new family names.
1847. Prichard (James Cowles).
Researches into the physical history of mankind (third edition), vol.
5, containing researches into the history of the Oceanic and of the
American nations. London, 1847.
It was the purpose of this author, as avowed by himself, to determine
whether the races of men are the cooffspring of a single stock or have
descended respectively from several original families. Like other
authors on this subject, his theory of what should constitute a race was
not clearly defined. The scope of the inquiry required the consideration
of a great number of subjects and led to the accumulation of a vast body
of facts. In volume 5 the author treats of the American Indians, and in
connection with the different tribes has something to say of their
languages. No attempt at an original classification is made, and in the
main the author follows Gallatin's classification and adopts his
conclusions.
1848. Gallatin (Albert).
Hale's Indians of Northwest America, and vocabularies of North
America, with an introduction. In Transactions of the American
Ethnological Society, New York, 1848, vol. 2.
The introduction consists of a number of chapters, as follows: First,
Geographical notices and Indian means of subsistence; second, Ancient
semi-civilization of New Mexico, Rio Gila and its vicinity; third,
Philology; fourth, Addenda and miscellaneous. In these are brought
together much valuable information, and many important deductions are
made which illustrate Mr. Gallatin's great acumen. The classification
given is an amplification of that adopted in 1836, and contains changes
and additions. The latter mainly result from a consideration of the
material supplied by Mr. Hale, or are simply taken from his work.
The groups additional to those contained in the Archaeologia Americana
are:
1. Arrapahoes.
2. Jakon.
3. Kalapuya.
4. Kitunaha.
5. Lutuami.
6. Palainih.
7. Sahaptin.
8. Selish (Tsihaili-Selish).
9. Saste.
10. Waiilatpu.
1848, Latham (Robert Gordon).
On the languages of the Oregon Territory. In Journal of the
Ethnological Society of London, Edinburgh, 1848, vol. 1.
This paper was read before the Ethnological Society on the 11th of
December. The languages noticed are those that lie between "Russian
America and New California," of which the author aims to give an
exhaustive list. He discusses the value of the groups to which these
languages have been assigned, viz, Athabascan and Nootka-Columbian, and
finds that they have been given too high value, and that they are only
equivalent to the primary subdivisions of _stocks_, like the Gothic,
Celtic, and Classical, rather than to the stocks themselves. He further
finds that the Athabascan, the Kolooch, the Nootka-Columbian, and the
Cadiak groups are subordinate members of one large and important
class--the Eskimo.
No new linguistic groups are presented.
1848. Latham (Robert Gordon).
On the ethnography of Russian America. In Journal of the Ethnological
Society of London, Edinburgh, 1848, vol. 1.
This essay was read before the Ethnological Society February 19, 1845.
Brief notices are given of the more important tribes, and the languages
are classed in two groups, the Eskimaux and the Kolooch. Each of these
groups is found to have affinities--
(1) With the Athabascan tongues, and perhaps equal affinities.
(2) Each has affinities with the Oregon languages, and each perhaps
equally.
(3) Each has definite affinities with the languages of New California,
and each perhaps equal ones.
(4) Each has miscellaneous affinities with all the other tongues of
North and South America.
1848. Berghaus (Heinrich).
Physikalischer Atlas oder Sammlung von Karten, auf denen die
hauptsaechlichsten erscheinungen der anorganischen und organischen
Natur nach ihrer geographischen Verbreitung und Vertheilung bildlich
dargestellt sind. Zweiter Band, Gotha, 1848.
This, the first edition of this well known atlas, contains, among other
maps, an ethnographic map of North America, made in 1845. It is based,
as is stated, upon material derived from Gallatin, Humboldt, Clavigero,
Hervas, Vater, and others. So far as the eastern part of the United
States is concerned it is largely a duplication of Gallatin's map of
1836, while in the western region a certain amount of new material is
incorporated.
1852. In the edition of 1852 the ethnographic map bears date of 1851.
Its eastern portion is substantially a copy of the earlier edition, but
its western half is materially changed, chiefly in accordance with the
knowledge supplied by Hall in 1848.
Map number 72 of the last edition of Berghaus by no means marks an
advance upon the edition of 1852. Apparently the number of families is
much reduced, but it is very difficult to interpret the meaning of the
author, who has attempted on the same map to indicate linguistic
divisions and tribal habitats with the result that confusion is made
worse confounded.
1853. Gallatin (Albert).
Classification of the Indian Languages; a letter inclosing a table of
generic Indian Families of languages. In Information respecting the
History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United
States, by Henry E. Schoolcraft. Philadelphia, 1853, vol. 3.
This short paper by Gallatin consists of a letter addressed to W.
Medill, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, requesting his cooperation in an
endeavor to obtain vocabularies to assist in a more complete study of
the grammar and structure of the languages of the Indians of North
America. It is accompanied by a "Synopsis of Indian Tribes," giving the
families and tribes so far as known. In the main the classification is a
repetition of that of 1848, but it differs from that in a number of
particulars. Two of the families of 1848 do not appear in this paper,
viz, Arapaho and Kinai. Queen Charlotte Island, employed as a family
name in 1848, is placed under the Wakash family, while the Skittagete
language, upon which the name Queen Charlotte Island was based in 1848,
is here given as a family designation for the language spoken at "Sitka,
bet. 52 and 59 lat." The following families appear which are not
contained in the list of 1848:
1. Cumanches.
2. Gros Ventres.
3. Kaskaias.
4. Kiaways.
5. Natchitoches.
6. Pani, Towiacks.
7. Ugaljachmatzi.
1853. Gibbs (George).
Observations on some of the Indian dialects of northern California. In
Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the
Indian tribes of the United States, by Henry E. Schoolcraft.
Philadelphia, 1853, vol. 3.
The "Observations" are introductory to a series of vocabularies
collected in northern California, and treat of the method employed in
collecting them and of the difficulties encountered. They also contain
notes on the tribes speaking the several languages as well as on the
area covered. There is comparatively little of a classificatory nature,
though in one instance the name Quoratem is proposed as a proper one for
the family "should it be held one."
1854. Latham (Robert Gordon).
On the languages of New California. In Proceedings of the Philological
Society of London for 1852 and 1853. London, 1854, vol. 6.
Read before the Philological Society, May 13, 1853. A number of
languages are examined in this paper for the purpose of determining the
stocks to which they belong and the mutual affinities of the latter.
Among the languages mentioned are the Saintskla, Umkwa, Lutuami, Paduca,
Athabascan, Dieguno, and a number of the Mission languages.
1855. Lane (William Carr).
Letter on affinities of dialects in New Mexico. In Information
respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian
tribes of the United States, by Henry R. Schoolcraft. Philadelphia,
1855, vol. 5.
The letter forms half a page of printed matter. The gist of the
communication is in effect that the author has heard it said that the
Indians of certain pueblos speak three different languages, which he has
heard called, respectively, (1) Chu-cha-cas and Kes-whaw-hay; (2)
E-nagh-magh; (3) Tay-waugh. This can hardly be called a classification,
though the arrangement of the pueblos indicated by Lane is quoted at
length by Keane in the Appendix to Stanford's Compendium.
1856. Latham (Robert Gordon).
On the languages of Northern, Western, and Central America. In
Transactions of the Philological Society of London, for 1856. London
[1857?].
This paper was read before the Philological Society May 9, 1856, and is
stated to be "a supplement to two well known contributions to American
philology by the late A. Gallatin."
So far as classification of North American languages goes, this is
perhaps the most important paper of Latham's, as in it a number of new
names are proposed for linguistic groups, such as Copeh for the
Sacramento River tribes, Ehnik for the Karok tribes, Mariposa Group and
Mendocino Group for the Yokut and Pomo tribes respectively, Moquelumne
for the Mutsun, Pujuni for the Meidoo, Weitspek for the Eurocs.
1856. Turner (William Wadden).
Report upon the Indian tribes, by Lieut. A. W. Whipple, Thomas
Ewbank, esq., and Prof. William W. Turner, Washington, D.C.,
1855. In Reports of Explorations and Surveys to ascertain the most
practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi
to the Pacific Ocean. Washington, 1856, vol. 3. part 3.
Chapter V of the above report is headed "Vocabularies of North American
Languages," and is by Turner, as is stated in a foot-note. Though the
title page of Part III is dated 1855, the chapter by Turner was not
issued till 1856, the date of the full volume, as is stated by Turner
on page 84. The following are the vocabularies given, with their
arrangement in families:
I. Delaware. }
II. Shawnee. } Algonkin.
III. Choctaw.
IV. Kichai. }
V. Hu['e]co. } Pawnee?
VI. Caddo.
VII. Comanche. }
VIII. Chemehuevi. } Shoshonee.
IX. Cahuillo. }
X. Kioway.
XI. Navajo. }
XII. Pinal Leno. } Apache.
XIII. Kiwomi. }
XIV. Cochitemi. } Keres.
XV. Acoma. }
XVI. Zuni.
XVII. Pima.
XVIII. Cuchan. }
XIX. Coco-Maricopa. }
XX. Mojave. } Yuma.
XXI. Diegeno. }
Several of the family names, viz, Keres, Kiowa, Yuma, and Zuni, have
been adopted under the rules formulated above.
1858. Buschmann (Johann Carl Eduard).
Die Voelker und Sprachen Neu-Mexiko's und der Westseite des britischen
Nordamerika's, dargestellt von Hrn. Buschmann. In Abhandlungen (aus
dem Jahre 1857) der koeniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu
Berlin. Berlin, 1858.
This work contains a historic review of early discoveries in New Mexico
and of the tribes living therein, with such vocabularies as were
available at the time. On pages 315-414 the tribes of British America,
from about latitude 54 deg. to 60 deg., are similarly treated, the various
discoveries being reviewed; also those on the North Pacific coast. Much
of the material should have been inserted in the volume of 1859 (which
was prepared in 1854), to which cross reference is frequently made, and
to which it stands in the nature of a supplement.
1859. Buschmann (Johann Carl Eduard).
Die Spuren der aztekischen Sprache im noerdlichen Mexico und hoeheren
amerikanischen Norden. Zugleich eine Musterung der Voelker und
Sprachen des noerdlichen Mexico's und der Westseite Nordamerika's von
Guadalaxara an bis zum Eismeer. In Abhandlungen aus dem Jahre 1854
der koeniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Berlin, 1859.
The above, forming a second supplemental volume of the Transactions for
1854, is an extensive compilation of much previous literature treating
of the Indian tribes from the Arctic Ocean southward to Guadalajara, and
bears specially upon the Aztec language and its traces in the languages
of the numerous tribes scattered along the Pacific Ocean and inland
to the high plains. A large number of vocabularies and a vast amount
of linguistic material are here brought together and arranged in
a comprehensive manner to aid in the study attempted. In his
classification of the tribes east of the Rocky Mountains, Buschmann
largely followed Gallatin. His treatment of those not included in
Gallatin's paper is in the main original. Many of the results obtained
may have been considered bold at the time of publication, but recent
philological investigations give evidence of the value of many of the
author's conclusions.
1859. Kane (Paul).
Wanderings of an artist among the Indians of North America from Canada
to Vancouver's Island and Oregon through the Hudson's Bay Company's
territory and back again. London, 1859.
The interesting account of the author's travels among the Indians,
chiefly in the Northwest, and of their habits, is followed by a four
page supplement, giving the names, locations, and census of the tribes
of the Northwest coast. They are classified by language into Chymseyan,
including the Nass, Chymseyans, Skeena and Sabassas Indians, of whom
twenty-one tribes are given; Ha-eelb-zuk or Ballabola, including the
Milbank Sound Indians, with nine tribes; Klen-ekate, including twenty
tribes; Hai-dai, including the Kygargey and Queen Charlotte's Island
Indians, nineteen tribes being enumerated; and Qua-colth, with
twenty-nine tribes. No statement of the origin of these tables is given,
and they reappear, with no explanation, in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes,
volume V, pp. 487-489.
In his Queen Charlotte Islands, 1870, Dawson publishes the part of this
table relating to the Haida, with the statement that he received it from
Dr. W. F. Tolmie. The census was made in 1836-'41 by the late Mr. John
Work, who doubtless was the author of the more complete tables published
by Kane and Schoolcraft.
1862. Latham (Robert Gordon).
Elements of comparative philology. London, 1862.
The object of this volume is, as the author states in his preface, "to
lay before the reader the chief facts and the chief trains of reasoning
in Comparative Philology." Among the great mass of material accumulated
for the purpose a share is devoted to the languages of North America.
The remarks under these are often taken verbatim from the author's
earlier papers, to which reference has been made above, and the family
names and classification set forth in them are substantially repeated.
1862. Hayden (Ferdinand Vandeveer).
Contributions to the ethnography and philology of the Indian tribes of
the Missouri Valley. Philadelphia, 1862.
This is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the Missouri River
tribes, made at a time when the information concerning them was none too
precise. The tribes treated of are classified as follows:
I. Knisteneaux, or Crees. }
II. Blackfeet. } Algonkin Group, A.
III. Shyennes. }
IV. Arapohos. } Arapoho Group, B.
V. Atsinas. }
VI. Pawnees. } Pawnee Group, C.
VII. Arikaras. }
VIII. Dakotas. }
IX. Assiniboins. }
X. Crows. }
XI. Minnitarees. } Dakota Group, D.
XII. Mandans. }
XIII. Omahas. }
XIV. Iowas. }
1864. Orozco y Berra (Manuel).
Geografia de las Lenguas y Carta Etnografica de Mexico Precedidas de
un ensayo de clasificacion de las mismas lenguas y de apuntes para
las inmigraciones de las tribus. Mexico, 1864.
The work is divided into three parts. (1) Tentative classification of
the languages of Mexico; (2) notes on the immigration of the tribes of
Mexico; (3) geography of the languages of Mexico.
The author states that he has no knowledge whatever of the languages he
treats of. All he attempts to do is to summarize the opinions of others.
His authorities were (1) writers on native grammars; (2) missionaries;
(3) persons who are reputed to be versed in such matters. He professes
to have used his own judgment only when these authorities left him free
to do so.
His stated method in compiling the ethnographic map was to place before
him the map of a certain department, examine all his authorities bearing
on that department, and to mark with a distinctive color all localities
said to belong to a particular language. When this was done he drew a
boundary line around the area of that language. Examination of the map
shows that he has partly expressed on it the classification of languages
as given in the first part of his text, and partly limited himself to
indicating the geographic boundaries of languages, without, however,
giving the boundaries of all the languages mentioned in his lists.
1865. Pimentel (Francisco).
Cuadro Descriptivo y Comparativo de las Lenguas Indigenas de Mexico.
Mexico, 1865.
According to the introduction this work is divided into three parts: (1)
descriptive; (2) comparative; (3) critical.
The author divides the treatment of each language into (1) its
mechanism; (2) its dictionary; (3) its grammar. By "mechanism" he means
pronunciation and composition; by "dictionary" he means the commonest or
most notable words.
In the case of each language he states the localities where it is
spoken, giving a short sketch of its history, the explanation of its
etymology, and a list of such writers on that language as he has become
acquainted with. Then follows: "mechanism, dictionary, and grammar."
Next he enumerates its dialects if there are any, and compares specimens
of them when he is able. He gives the Our Father when he can.
Volume I (1862) contains introduction and twelve languages. Volume II
(1865) contains fourteen groups of languages, a vocabulary of the Opata
language, and an appendix treating of the Comanche, the Coahuilteco, and
various languages of upper California.
Volume III (announced in preface of Volume II) is to contain the
"comparative part" (to be treated in the same "mixed" method as the
"descriptive part"), and a scientific classification of all the
languages spoken in Mexico.
In the "critical part" (apparently dispersed through the other two
parts) the author intends to pass judgment on the merits of the
languages of Mexico, to point out their good qualities and their
defects.
1870. Dall (William Healey).
On the distribution of the native tribes of Alaska and the adjacent
territory. In Proceedings of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. Cambridge, 1870, vol. 18.
In this important paper is presented much interesting information
concerning the inhabitants of Alaska and adjacent territories. The
natives are divided into two groups, the Indians of the interior, and
the inhabitants of the coast, or Esquimaux. The latter are designated by
the term Orarians, which are composed of three lesser groups, Eskimo,
Aleutians, and Tuski. The Orarians are distinguished, first, by their
language; second, by their distribution; third, by their habits; fourth,
by their physical characteristics.
1870. Dall (William Healey).
Alaska and its Resources. Boston, 1870.
The classification followed is practically the same as is given in the
author's article in the Proceedings of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science.
1877. Dall (William Healey).
Tribes of the extreme northwest. In Contributions to North American
Ethnology (published by United States Geographical and Geological
Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region). Washington, 1877, vol. 1.
This is an amplification of the paper published in the Proceedings of
the American Association, as above cited. The author states that
"numerous additions and corrections, as well as personal observations of
much before taken at second hand, have placed it in my power to enlarge
and improve my original arrangement."
In this paper the Orarians are divided into "two well marked groups,"
the Innuit, comprising all the so-called Eskimo and Tuskis, and the
Aleuts. The paper proper is followed by an appendix by Gibbs and Dall,
in which are presented a series of vocabularies from the northwest,
including dialects of the Tlinkit and Haida nations, T'sim-si-ans, and
others.
1877. Gibbs (George).
Tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon. In Contributions
to North American Ethnology. Washington, 1887, vol. 1.
This is a valuable article, and gives many interesting particulars of
the tribes of which it treats. References are here and there made to the
languages of the several tribes, with, however, no attempt at their
classification. A table follows the report, in which is given by Dall,
after Gibbs, a classification of the tribes mentioned by Gibbs. Five
families are mentioned, viz: N[-u]tka, Sahaptin, Tinneh, Selish, and
T'sin[-u]k. The comparative vocabularies follow Part II.
1877. Powers (Stephen).
Tribes of California. In Contributions to North American Ethnology.
Washington, 1877, vol. 3.
The extended paper on the Californian tribes which makes up the bulk of
this volume is the most important contribution to the subject ever made.
The author's unusual opportunities for personal observation among these
tribes were improved to the utmost and the result is a comparatively
full and comprehensive account of their habits and character.
Here and there are allusions to the languages spoken, with reference to
the families to which the tribes belong. No formal classification is
presented.
1877. Powell (John Wesley).
Appendix. Linguistics edited by J. W. Powell. In Contributions to
North American Ethnology. Washington, 1877, vol. 3.
This appendix consists of a series of comparative vocabularies collected
by Powers, Gibbs and others, classified into linguistic families, as
follows:
Family.
1. K['a]-rok.
2. Y['u]-rok.
3. Chim-a-r['i]-ko.
4. Wish-osk.
5. Y['u]-ki.
6. P['o]mo.
7. Win-t[-u]n['].
8. M[-u]t[']-s[-u]n.
9. Santa Barbara.
10. Y['o]-kuts.
11. Mai[']-du.
12. A-cho-m[^a][']-wi.
13. Sha['s]-ta.
1877. Gatschet (Albert Samuel).
Indian languages of the Pacific States and Territories. In Magazine of
American History. New York, 1877, vol. 1.
After some remarks concerning the nature of language and of the special
characteristics of Indian languages, the author gives a synopsis of the
languages of the Pacific region. The families mentioned are:
1. Sh['o]shoni. 15. Cahrok.
2. Yuma. 16. Tolewa.
3. Pima. 17. Shasta.
4. Santa Barbara. 18. Pit River.
5. Mutsun. 19. Klamath.
6. Yocut. 20. Tinn['e].
7. Meewoc. 21. Yakon.
8. Meidoo. 22. Cayuse.
9. Wintoon. 23. Kalapuya.
10. Yuka. 24. Chinook.
11. Pomo. 25. Sahaptin.
12. Wishosk. 26. Selish.
13. Eurok. 27. Nootka.
14. Weits-pek. 28. Kootenai.
This is an important paper, and contains notices of several new stocks,
derived from a study of the material furnished by Powers.
The author advocates the plan of using a system of nomenclature similar
in nature to that employed in zoology in the case of generic and
specific names, adding after the name of the tribe the family to which
it belongs; thus: Warm Springs, Sahaptin.
1878. Powell (John Wesley).
The nationality of the Pueblos. In the Rocky Mountain Presbyterian.
Denver, November, 1878.
This is a half-column article, the object of which is to assign the
several Pueblos to their proper stocks. A paragraph is devoted to
contradicting the popular belief that the Pueblos are in some way
related to the Aztecs. No vocabularies are given or cited, though the
classification is stated to be a linguistic one.
1878. Keane (Augustus H).
Appendix. Ethnography and philology of America. In Stanford's
Compendium of Geography and Travel, edited and extended by
H. W. Bates. London, 1878.
In the appendix are given, first, some of the more general
characteristics and peculiarities of Indian languages, followed by a
classification of all the tribes of North America, after which is given
an alphabetical list of American tribes and languages, with their
habitats and the stock to which they belong.
The classification is compiled from many sources, and although it
contains many errors and inconsistencies, it affords on the whole a good
general idea of prevalent views on the subject.
1880. Powell (John Wesley).
Pueblo Indians. In the American Naturalist. Philadelphia, 1880,
vol. 14.
This is a two-page article in which is set forth a classification of the
Pueblo Indians from linguistic considerations. The Pueblos are divided
into four families or stocks, viz:
1. Sh['i]numo.
2. Zunian.
3. K['e]ran.
4. T['e]wan.
Under the several stocks is given a list of those who have collected
vocabularies of these languages and a reference to their publication.
1880. Eells (Myron).
The Twana language of Washington Territory. In the American
Antiquarian. Chicago, 1880-'81, vol. 3.
This is a brief article--two and a half pages--on the Twana, Clallam,
and Chemakum Indians. The author finds, upon a comparison of
vocabularies, that the Chemakum language has little in common with
its neighbors.
1885. Dall (William Healey).
The native tribes of Alaska. In Proceedings of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, thirty-fourth meeting,
held at Ann Arbor, Mich., August, 1885. Salem, 1886.
This paper is a timely contribution to the subject of the Alaska tribes,
and carries it from the point at which the author left it in 1869 to
date, briefly summarizing the several recent additions to knowledge. It
ends with a geographical classification of the Innuit and Indian tribes
of Alaska, with estimates of their numbers.
1885. Bancroft (Hubert Howe).
The works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, vol. 3: the native races, vol. 3,
myths and languages. San Francisco, 1882.
[Transcriber's Note:
Vols. 1-5 collectively are "The Native Races"; vol. 3 is _Myths and
Languages_.]
In the chapter on that subject the languages are classified by divisions
which appear to correspond to groups, families, tribes, and dialects.
The classification does not, however, follow any consistent plan, and is
in parts unintelligible.
1882. Gatschet (Albert Samuel).
Indian languages of the Pacific States and Territories and of the
Pueblos of New Mexico. In the Magazine of American History. New
York, 1882, vol. 8.
This paper is in the nature of a supplement to a previous one in the
same magazine above referred to. It enlarges further on several of the
stocks there considered, and, as the title indicates, treats also of the
Pueblo languages. The families mentioned are:
1. Chimariko.
2. Washo.
3. Y['a]kona.
4. Say['u]skla.
5. K['u]sa.
6. Takilma.
7. Rio Grande Pueblo.
8. Kera.
9. Zuni.
1883. Hale (Horatio).
Indian migrations, as evidenced by language. In The American
Antiquarian and Oriental Journal. Chicago, 1888, vol. 5.
In connection with the object of this paper--the study of Indian
migrations--several linguistic stocks are mentioned, and the linguistic
affinities of a number of tribes are given. The stocks mentioned are:
Huron-Cherokee.
Dakota.
Algonkin.
Chahta-Muskoki.
1885. Tolmie (W. Fraser) and Dawson (George M.)
Comparative vocabularies of the Indian tribes of British Columbia,
with a map illustrating distribution (Geological and Natural History
Survey of Canada). Montreal, 1884.
The vocabularies presented constitute an important contribution to
linguistic science. They represent "one or more dialects of every Indian
language spoken on the Pacific slope from the Columbia River north to
the Tshilkat River, and beyond, in Alaska; and from the outermost
sea-board to the main continental divide in the Rocky Mountains."
A colored map shows the area occupied by each linguistic family.
* * * * *
LINGUISTIC MAP.
In 1836 Gallatin conferred a great boon upon linguistic students by
classifying all the existing material relating to this subject. Even in
the light of the knowledge of the present day his work is found to rest
upon a sound basis. The material of Gallatin's time, however, was too
scanty to permit of more than an outline of the subject. Later writers
have contributed to the work, and the names of Latham, Turner, Prichard,
Buschmann, Hale, Gatschet, and others are connected with important
classificatory results.
The writer's interest in linguistic work and the inception of a plan for
a linguistic classification of Indian languages date back about 20
years, to a time when he was engaged in explorations in the West. Being
brought into contact with many tribes, it was possible to collect a
large amount of original material. Subsequently, when the Bureau of
Ethnology was organized, this store was largely increased through the
labors of others. Since then a very large body of literature published
in Indian languages has been accumulated, and a great number of
vocabularies have been gathered by the Bureau assistants and by
collaborators in various parts of the country. The results of a study of
all this material, and of much historical data, which necessarily enters
largely into work of this character, appear in the accompanying map.
The contributions to the subject during the last fifty years have been
so important, and the additions to the material accessible to the
student of Gallatin's time have been so large, that much of the reproach
which deservedly attached to American scholars because of the neglect of
American linguistics has been removed. The field is a vast one, however,
and the workers are comparatively few. Moreover, opportunities for
collecting linguistic material are growing fewer day by day, as tribes
are consolidated upon reservations, as they become civilized, and as the
older Indians, who alone are skilled in their language, die, leaving, it
may be, only a few imperfect vocabularies as a basis for future study.
History has bequeathed to us the names of many tribes, which became
extinct in early colonial times, of whose language not a hint is left
and whose linguistic relations must ever remain unknown.
It is vain to grieve over neglected opportunities unless their
contemplation stimulates us to utilize those at hand. There are yet many
gaps to be filled, even in so elementary a part of the study as the
classification of the tribes by language. As to the detailed study of
the different linguistic families, the mastery and analysis of the
languages composing them, and their comparison with one another and with
the languages of other families, only a beginning has been made.
After the above statement it is hardly necessary to add that the
accompanying map does not purport to represent final results. On the
contrary, it is to be regarded as tentative, setting forth in visible
form the results of investigation up to the present time, as a guide and
aid to future effort.
Each of the colors or patterns upon the map represents a distinct
linguistic family, the total number of families contained in the whole
area being fifty-eight. It is believed that the families of languages
represented upon the map can not have sprung from a common source; they
are as distinct from one another in their vocabularies and apparently in
their origin as from the Aryan or the Scythian families. Unquestionably,
future and more critical study will result in the fusion of some of
these families. As the means for analysis and comparison accumulate,
resemblances now hidden will be brought to light, and relationships
hitherto unsuspected will be shown to exist. Such a result may be
anticipated with the more certainty inasmuch as the present
classification has been made upon a conservative plan. Where
relationships between families are suspected, but can not be
demonstrated by convincing evidence, it has been deemed wiser not to
unite them, but to keep them apart until more material shall have
accumulated and proof of a more convincing character shall have been
brought forward. While some of the families indicated on the map may in
future be united to other families, and the number thus be reduced,
there seems to be no ground for the belief that the total of the
linguistic families of this country will be materially diminished, at
least under the present methods of linguistic analysis, for there is
little reason to doubt that, as the result of investigation in the
field, there will be discovered tribes speaking languages not
classifiable under any of the present families; thus the decrease in the
total by reason of consolidation may be compensated by a corresponding
increase through discovery. It may even be possible that some of the
similarities used in combining languages into families may, on further
study, prove to be adventitious, and the number may be increased
thereby. To which side the numerical balance will fall remains for the
future to decide.
As stated above, all the families occupy the same basis of dissimilarity
from one another--i.e., none of them are related--and consequently no
two of them are either more or less alike than any other two, except
in so far as mere coincidences and borrowed material may be said to
constitute likeness and relationship. Coincidences in the nature of
superficial word resemblances are common in all languages of the world.
No matter how widely separated geographically two families of languages
may be, no matter how unlike their vocabularies, how distinct their
origin, some words may always be found which appear upon superficial
examination to indicate relationship. There is not a single Indian
linguistic family, for instance, which does not contain words similar
in sound, and more rarely similar in both sound and meaning, to words
in English, Chinese, Hebrew, and other languages. Not only do such
resemblances exist, but they have been discovered and pointed out, not
as mere adventitious similarities, but as proof of genetic relationship.
Borrowed linguistic material also appears in every family, tempting the
unwary investigator into making false analogies and drawing erroneous
conclusions. Neither coincidences nor borrowed material, however, can be
properly regarded as evidence of cognation.
While occupying the same plane of genetic dissimilarity, the families
are by no means alike as regards either the extent of territory
occupied, the number of tribes grouped under them respectively, or the
number of languages and dialects of which they are composed. Some of
them cover wide areas, whose dimensions are stated in terms of latitude
and longitude rather than by miles. Others occupy so little space that
the colors representing them are hardly discernible upon the map. Some
of them contain but a single tribe; others are represented by scores of
tribes. In the case of a few, the term "family" is commensurate with
language, since there is but one language and no dialects. In the case
of others, their tribes spoke several languages, so distinct from one
another as to be for the most part mutually unintelligible, and the
languages shade into many dialects more or less diverse.
The map, designed primarily for the use of students who are engaged in
investigating the Indians of the United States, was at first limited to
this area; subsequently its scope was extended to include the whole of
North America north of Mexico. Such an extension of its plan was,
indeed, almost necessary, since a number of important families, largely
represented in the United States, are yet more largely represented in
the territory to the north, and no adequate conception of the size and
relative importance of such families as the Algonquian, Siouan,
Salishan, Athapascan, and others can be had without including
extralimital territory.
To the south, also, it happens that several linguistic stocks extend
beyond the boundaries of the United States. Three families are, indeed,
mainly extralimital in their position, viz: Yuman, the great body of the
tribes of which family inhabited the peninsula of Lower California;
Piman, which has only a small representation in southern Arizona; and
the Coahuiltecan, which intrudes into southwestern Texas. The Athapascan
family is represented in Arizona and New Mexico by the well known Apache
and Navajo, the former of whom have gained a strong foothold in northern
Mexico, while the Tanoan, a Pueblo family of the upper Rio Grande, has
established a few pueblos lower down the river in Mexico. For the
purpose of necessary comparison, therefore, the map is made to include
all of North America north of Mexico, the entire peninsula of Lower
California, and so much of Mexico as is necessary to show the range of
families common to that country and to the United States. It is left to
a future occasion to attempt to indicate the linguistic relations of
Mexico and Central America, for which, it may be remarked in passing,
much material has been accumulated.
It is apparent that a single map can not be made to show the locations
of the several linguistic families at different epochs; nor can a single
map be made to represent the migrations of the tribes composing the
linguistic families. In order to make a clear presentation of the latter
subject, it would be necessary to prepare a series of maps showing the
areas successively occupied by the several tribes as they were disrupted
and driven from section to section under the pressure of other tribes or
the vastly more potent force of European encroachment. Although the data
necessary for a complete representation of tribal migration, even for
the period subsequent to the advent of the European, does not exist,
still a very large body of material bearing upon the subject is at hand,
and exceedingly valuable results in this direction could be presented
did not the amount of time and labor and the large expense attendant
upon such a project forbid the attempt for the present.
The map undertakes to show the habitat of the linguistic families only,
and this is for but a single period in their history, viz, at the time
when the tribes composing them first became known to the European, or
when they first appear on recorded history. As the dates when the
different tribes became known vary, it follows as a matter of course
that the periods represented by the colors in one portion of the map are
not synchronous with those in other portions. Thus the data for the
Columbia River tribes is derived chiefly from the account of the journey
of Lewis and Clarke in 1803-'05, long before which period radical
changes of location had taken place among the tribes of the eastern
United States. Again, not only are the periods represented by the
different sections of the map not synchronous, but only in the case of a
few of the linguistic families, and these usually the smaller ones, is
it possible to make the coloring synchronous for different sections of
the same family. Thus our data for the location of some of the northern
members of the Shoshonean family goes back to 1804, a date at which
absolutely no knowledge had been gained of most of the southern members
of the group, our first accounts of whom began about 1850. Again, our
knowledge of the eastern Algonquian tribes dates back to about 1600,
while no information was had concerning the Atsina, Blackfeet, Cheyenne,
and the Arapaho, the westernmost members of the family, until two
centuries later.
Notwithstanding these facts, an attempt to fix upon the areas formerly
occupied by the several linguistic families, and of the pristine homes
of many of the tribes composing them, is by no means hopeless. For
instance, concerning the position of the western tribes during the
period of early contact of our colonies and its agreement with their
position later when they appear in history, it may be inferred that as a
rule it was stationary, though positive evidence is lacking. When
changes of tribal habitat actually took place they were rarely in the
nature of extensive migration, by which a portion of a linguistic family
was severed from the main body, but usually in the form of encroachment
by a tribe or tribes upon neighboring territory, which resulted simply
in the extension of the limits of one linguistic family at the expense
of another, the defeated tribes being incorporated or confined within
narrower limits. If the above inference be correct, the fact that
different chronologic periods are represented upon the map is of
comparatively little importance, since, if the Indian tribes were in the
main sedentary, and not nomadic, the changes resulting in the course of
one or two centuries would not make material differences. Exactly the
opposite opinion, however, has been expressed by many writers, viz, that
the North American Indian tribes were nomadic. The picture presented by
these writers is of a medley of ever-shifting tribes, to-day here,
to-morrow there, occupying new territory and founding new homes--if
nomads can be said to have homes--only to abandon them. Such a picture,
however, is believed to convey an erroneous idea of the former condition
of our Indian tribes. As the question has significance in the present
connection it must be considered somewhat at length.
INDIAN TRIBES SEDENTARY.
In the first place, the linguistic map, based as it is upon the earliest
evidence obtainable, itself offers conclusive proof, not only that the
Indian tribes were in the main sedentary at the time history first
records their position, but that they had been sedentary for a very long
period. In order that this may be made plain, it should be clearly
understood, as stated above, that each of the colors or patterns upon
the map indicates a distinct linguistic family. It will be noticed that
the colors representing the several families are usually in single
bodies, i.e., that they represent continuous areas, and that with some
exceptions the same color is not scattered here and there over the map
in small spots. Yet precisely this last state of things is what would be
expected had the tribes representing the families been nomadic to a
marked degree. If nomadic tribes occupied North America, instead of
spreading out each from a common center, as the colors show that the
tribes composing the several families actually did, they would have been
dispersed here and there over the whole face of the country. That they
are not so dispersed is considered proof that in the main they were
sedentary. It has been stated above that more or less extensive
migrations of some tribes over the country had taken place prior to
European occupancy. This fact is disclosed by a glance at the present
map. The great Athapascan family, for instance, occupying the larger
part of British America, is known from linguistic evidence to have sent
off colonies into Oregon (Wilopah, Tlatskanai, Coquille), California
(Smith River tribes, Kenesti or Wailakki tribes, Hupa), and Arizona and
New Mexico (Apache, Navajo). How long before European occupancy of this
country these migrations took place can not be told, but in the case of
most of them it was undoubtedly many years. By the test of language it
is seen that the great Siouan family, which we have come to look upon as
almost exclusively western, had one offshoot in Virginia (Tutelo),
another in North and South Carolina (Catawba), and a third in
Mississippi (Biloxi); and the Algonquian family, so important in the
early history of this country, while occupying a nearly continuous area
in the north and east, had yet secured a foothold, doubtless in very
recent times, in Wyoming and Colorado. These and other similar facts
sufficiently prove the power of individual tribes or gentes to sunder
relations with the great body of their kindred and to remove to distant
homes. Tested by linguistic evidence, such instances appear to be
exceptional, and the fact remains that in the great majority of cases
the tribes composing linguistic families occupy continuous areas, and
hence are and have been practically sedentary. Nor is the bond of a
common language, strong and enduring as that bond is usually thought to
be, entirely sufficient to explain the phenomenon here pointed out. When
small in number the linguistic tie would undoubtedly aid in binding
together the members of a tribe; but as the people speaking a common
language increase in number and come to have conflicting interests, the
linguistic tie has often proved to be an insufficient bond of union. In
the case of our Indian tribes feuds and internecine conflicts were
common between members of the same linguistic family. In fact, it is
probable that a very large number of the dialects into which Indian
languages are split originated as the result of internecine strife.
Factions, divided and separated from the parent body, by contact,
intermarriage, and incorporation with foreign tribes, developed distinct
dialects or languages.
But linguistic evidence alone need not be relied upon to prove that the
North American Indian was not nomadic.
Corroborative proof of the sedentary character of our Indian tribes is
to be found in the curious form of kinship system, with mother-right
as its chief factor, which prevails. This, as has been pointed out in
another place, is not adapted to the necessities of nomadic tribes,
which need to be governed by a patriarchal system, and, as well, to be
possessed of flocks and herds.
There is also an abundance of historical evidence to show that, when
first discovered by Europeans, the Indians of the eastern United States
were found living in fixed habitations. This does not necessarily imply
that the entire year was spent in one place. Agriculture not being
practiced to an extent sufficient to supply the Indian with full
subsistence, he was compelled to make occasional changes from his
permanent home to the more or less distant waters and forests to procure
supplies of food. When furnished with food and skins for clothing, the
hunting parties returned to the village which constituted their true
home. At longer periods, for several reasons--among which probably the
chief were the hostility of stronger tribes, the failure of the fuel
supply near the village, and the compulsion exercised by the ever lively
superstitious fancies of the Indians--the villages were abandoned and
new ones formed to constitute new homes, new focal points from which to
set out on their annual hunts and to which to return when these were
completed. The tribes of the eastern United States had fixed and
definitely bounded habitats, and their wanderings were in the nature of
temporary excursions to established points resorted to from time
immemorial. As, however, they had not yet entered completely into the
agricultural condition, to which they were fast progressing from the
hunter state, they may be said to have been nomadic to a very limited
extent. The method of life thus sketched was substantially the one which
the Indians were found practicing throughout the eastern part of the
United States, as also, though to a less degree, in the Pacific States.
Upon the Pacific coast proper the tribes were even more sedentary than
upon the Atlantic, as the mild climate and the great abundance and
permanent supply of fish and shellfish left no cause for a seasonal
change of abode.
When, however, the interior portions of the country were first visited
by Europeans, a different state of affairs was found to prevail. There
the acquisition of the horse and the possession of firearms had wrought
very great changes in aboriginal habits. The acquisition of the former
enabled the Indian of the treeless plains to travel distances with ease
and celerity which before were practically impossible, and the
possession of firearms stimulated tribal aggressiveness to the utmost
pitch. Firearms were everywhere doubly effective in producing changes in
tribal habitats, since the somewhat gradual introduction of trade placed
these deadly weapons in the hands of some tribes, and of whole congeries
of tribes, long before others could obtain them. Thus the general state
of tribal equilibrium which had before prevailed was rudely disturbed.
Tribal warfare, which hitherto had been attended with inconsiderable
loss of life and slight territorial changes, was now made terribly
destructive, and the territorial possessions of whole groups of tribes
were augmented at the expense of those less fortunate. The horse made
wanderers of many tribes which there is sufficient evidence to show were
formerly nearly sedentary. Firearms enforced migration and caused
wholesale changes in the habitats of tribes, which, in the natural order
of events, it would have taken many centuries to produce. The changes
resulting from these combined agencies, great as they were, are,
however, slight in comparison with the tremendous effects of the
wholesale occupancy of Indian territory by Europeans. As the acquisition
of territory by the settlers went on, a wave of migration from east to
west was inaugurated which affected tribes far remote from the point of
disturbance, ever forcing them within narrower and narrower bounds, and,
as time went on, producing greater and greater changes throughout the
entire country.
So much of the radical change in tribal habitats as took place in the
area remote from European settlements, mainly west of the Mississippi,
is chiefly unrecorded, save imperfectly in Indian tradition, and is
chiefly to be inferred from linguistic evidence and from the few facts
in our possession. As, however, the most important of these changes
occurred after, and as a result of, European occupancy, they are noted
in history, and thus the map really gives a better idea of the pristine
or prehistoric habitat of the tribes than at first might be thought
possible.
Before speaking of the method of establishing the boundary lines between
the linguistic families, as they appear upon the map, the nature of the
Indian claim to land and the manner and extent of its occupation should
be clearly set forth.
POPULATION.
As the question of the Indian population of the country has a direct
bearing upon the extent to which the land was actually occupied, a few
words on the subject will be introduced here, particularly as the area
included in the linguistic map is so covered with color that it may
convey a false impression of the density of the Indian population.
As a result of an investigation of the subject of the early Indian
population, Col. Mallery long ago arrived at the conclusion that their
settlements were not numerous, and that the population, as compared with
the enormous territory occupied, was extremely small.[1]
[Footnote 1: Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Science, 1877, vol. 26.]
Careful examination since the publication of the above tends to
corroborate the soundness of the conclusions there first formulated.
The subject may be set forth as follows:
The sea shore, the borders of lakes, and the banks of rivers, where fish
and shell-fish were to be obtained in large quantities, were naturally
the Indians' chief resort, and at or near such places were to be found
their permanent settlements. As the settlements and lines of travel of
the early colonists were along the shore, the lakes and the rivers,
early estimates of the Indian population were chiefly based upon the
numbers congregated along these highways, it being generally assumed
that away from the routes of travel a like population existed. Again,
over-estimates of population resulted from the fact that the same body
of Indians visited different points during the year, and not
infrequently were counted two or three times; change of permanent
village sites also tended to augment estimates of population.
For these and other reasons a greatly exaggerated idea of the Indian
population was obtained, and the impressions so derived have been
dissipated only in comparatively recent times.
As will be stated more fully later, the Indian was dependent to no small
degree upon natural products for his food supply. Could it be affirmed
that the North American Indians had increased to a point where they
pressed upon the food supply, it would imply a very much larger
population than we are justified in assuming from other considerations.
But for various reasons the Malthusian law, whether applicable elsewhere
or not, can not be applied to the Indians of this country. Everywhere
bountiful nature had provided an unfailing and practically inexhaustible
food supply. The rivers teemed with fish and mollusks, and the forests
with game, while upon all sides was an abundance of nutritious roots and
seeds. All of these sources were known, and to a large extent they were
drawn upon by the Indian, but the practical lesson of providing in the
season of plenty for the season of scarcity had been but imperfectly
learned, or, when learned, was but partially applied. Even when taught
by dire experience the necessity of laying up adequate stores, it was
the almost universal practice to waste great quantities of food by a
constant succession of feasts, in the superstitious observances of which
the stores were rapidly wasted and plenty soon gave way to scarcity and
even to famine.
Curiously enough, the hospitality which is so marked a trait among our
North American Indians had its source in a law, the invariable practice
of which has had a marked effect in retarding the acquisition by the
Indian of the virtue of providence. As is well known, the basis of the
Indian social organization was the kinship system. By its provisions
almost all property was possessed in common by the gens or clan. Food,
the most important of all, was by no means left to be exclusively
enjoyed by the individual or the family obtaining it.
For instance, the distribution of game among the families of a party was
variously provided for in different tribes, but the practical effect of
the several customs relating thereto was the sharing of the supply. The
hungry Indian had but to ask to receive and this no matter how small the
supply, or how dark the future prospect. It was not only his privilege
to ask, it was his right to demand. Undoubtedly what was originally a
right, conferred by kinship connections, ultimately assumed broader
proportions, and finally passed into the exercise of an almost
indiscriminate hospitality. By reason of this custom, the poor hunter
was virtually placed upon equality with the expert one, the lazy with
the industrious, the improvident with the more provident. Stories of
Indian life abound with instances of individual families or parties
being called upon by those less fortunate or provident to share their
supplies.
The effect of such a system, admirable as it was in many particulars,
practically placed a premium upon idleness. Under such communal rights
and privileges a potent spur to industry and thrift is wanting.
There is an obverse side to this problem, which a long and intimate
acquaintance with the Indians in their villages has forced upon the
writer. The communal ownership of food and the great hospitality
practiced by the Indian have had a very much greater influence upon his
character than that indicated in the foregoing remarks. The peculiar
institutions prevailing in this respect gave to each tribe or clan a
profound interest in the skill, ability and industry of each member. He
was the most valuable person in the community who supplied it with the
most of its necessities. For this reason the successful hunter or
fisherman was always held in high honor, and the woman, who gathered
great store of seeds, fruits, or roots, or who cultivated a good
corn-field, was one who commanded the respect and received the highest
approbation of the people. The simple and rude ethics of a tribal people
are very important to them, the more so because of their communal
institutions; and everywhere throughout the tribes of the United States
it is discovered that their rules of conduct were deeply implanted in
the minds of the people. An organized system of teaching is always
found, as it is the duty of certain officers of the clan to instruct the
young in all the industries necessary to their rude life, and simple
maxims of industry abound among the tribes and are enforced in diverse
and interesting ways. The power of the elder men in the clan over its
young members is always very great, and the training of the youth is
constant and rigid. Besides this, a moral sentiment exists in favor of
primitive virtues which is very effective in molding character. This may
be illustrated in two ways.
Marriage among all Indian tribes is primarily by legal appointment, as
the young woman receives a husband from some other prescribed clan or
clans, and the elders of the clan, with certain exceptions, control
these marriages, and personal choice has little to do with the affair.
When marriages are proposed, the virtues and industry of the candidates,
and more than all, their ability to properly live as married couples and
to supply the clan or tribe with a due amount of subsistence, are
discussed long and earnestly, and the young man or maiden who fails in
this respect may fail in securing an eligible and desirable match. And
these motives are constantly presented to the savage youth.
A simple democracy exists among these people, and they have a variety of
tribal offices to fill. In this way the men of the tribe are graded, and
they pass from grade to grade by a selection practically made by the
people. And this leads to a constant discussion of the virtues and
abilities of all the male members of the clan, from boyhood to old age.
He is most successful in obtaining clan and tribal promotion who is most
useful to the clan and the tribe. In this manner all of the ambitious
are stimulated, and this incentive to industry is very great.
When brought into close contact with the Indian, and into intimate
acquaintance with his language, customs, and religious ideas, there is a
curious tendency observable in students to overlook aboriginal vices and
to exaggerate aboriginal virtues. It seems to be forgotten that after
all the Indian is a savage, with the characteristics of a savage, and he
is exalted even above the civilized man. The tendency is exactly the
reverse of what it is in the case of those who view the Indian at a
distance and with no precise knowledge of any of his characteristics. In
the estimation of such persons the Indian's vices greatly outweigh his
virtues; his language is a gibberish, his methods of war cowardly, his
ideas of religion utterly puerile.
The above tendencies are accentuated in the attempt to estimate the
comparative worth and position of individual tribes. No being is more
patriotic than the Indian. He believes himself to be the result of a
special creation by a partial deity and holds that his is the one
favored race. The name by which the tribes distinguish themselves from
other tribes indicates the further conviction that, as the Indian is
above all created things, so in like manner each particular tribe is
exalted above all others. "Men of men" is the literal translation of one
name; "the only men" of another, and so on through the whole category. A
long residence with any one tribe frequently inoculates the student with
the same patriotic spirit. Bringing to his study of a particular tribe
an inadequate conception of Indian attainments and a low impression of
their moral and intellectual plane, the constant recital of its virtues,
the bravery and prowess of its men in war, their generosity, the chaste
conduct and obedience of its women as contrasted with the opposite
qualities of all other tribes, speedily tends to partisanship. He
discovers many virtues and finds that the moral and intellectual
attainments are higher than he supposed; but these advantages he
imagines to be possessed solely, or at least to an unusual degree, by
the tribe in question. Other tribes are assigned much lower rank in the
scale.
The above is peculiarly true of the student of language. He who studies
only one Indian language and learns its manifold curious grammatic
devices, its wealth of words, its capacity of expression, is speedily
convinced of its superiority to all other Indian tongues, and not
infrequently to all languages by whomsoever spoken.
If like admirable characteristics are asserted for other tongues he is
apt to view them but as derivatives from one original. Thus he is led to
overlook the great truth that the mind of man is everywhere practically
the same, and that the innumerable differences of its products are
indices merely of different stages of growth or are the results of
different conditions of environment. In its development the human mind
is limited by no boundaries of tribe or race.
Again, a long acquaintance with many tribes in their homes leads to the
belief that savage people do not lack industry so much as wisdom. They
are capable of performing, and often do perform, great and continuous
labor. The men and women alike toil from day to day and from year to
year, engaged in those tasks that are presented with the recurring
seasons. In civilization, hunting and fishing are often considered
sports, but in savagery they are labors, and call for endurance,
patience, and sagacity. And these are exercised to a reasonable degree
among all savage peoples.
It is probable that the real difficulty of purchasing quantities of food
from Indians has, in most cases, not been properly understood. Unless
the alien is present at a time of great abundance, when there is more on
hand or easily obtainable than sufficient to supply the wants of the
people, food can not be bought of the Indians. This arises from the fact
that the tribal tenure is communal, and to get food by purchase requires
a treaty at which all the leading members of the tribe are present and
give consent.
As an illustration of the improvidence of the Indians generally, the
habits of the tribes along the Columbia River may be cited. The Columbia
River has often been pointed to as the probable source of a great part
of the Indian population of this country, because of the enormous supply
of salmon furnished by it and its tributaries. If an abundant and
readily obtained supply of food was all that was necessary to insure a
large population, and if population always increased up to the limit of
food supply, unquestionably the theory of repeated migratory waves of
surplus population from the Columbia Valley would be plausible enough.
It is only necessary, however, to turn to the accounts of the earlier
explorers of this region, Lewis and Clarke, for example, to refute the
idea, so far at least as the Columbia Valley is concerned, although a
study of the many diverse languages spread over the United States would
seem sufficiently to prove that the tribes speaking them could not have
originated at a common center, unless, indeed, at a period anterior to
the formation of organized language.
The Indians inhabiting the Columbia Valley were divided into many
tribes, belonging to several distinct linguistic families. They all were
in the same culture status, however, and differed in habits and arts
only in minor particulars. All of them had recourse to the salmon of the
Columbia for the main part of their subsistence, and all practiced
similar crude methods of curing fish and storing it away for the winter.
Without exception, judging from the accounts of the above mentioned and
of more recent authors, all the tribes suffered periodically more or
less from insufficient food supply, although, with the exercise of due
forethought and economy, even with their rude methods of catching and
curing salmon, enough might here have been cured annually to suffice for
the wants of the Indian population of the entire Northwest for several
years.
In their ascent of the river in spring, before the salmon run, it was
only with great difficulty that Lewis and Clarke were able to provide
themselves by purchase with enough food to keep themselves from
starving. Several parties of Indians from the vicinity of the Dalles,
the best fishing station on the river, were met on their way down in
quest of food, their supply of dried salmon having been entirely
exhausted.
Nor is there anything in the accounts of any of the early visitors to
the Columbia Valley to authorize the belief that the population there
was a very large one. As was the case with all fish-stocked streams, the
Columbia was resorted to in the fishing season by many tribes living at
considerable distance from it; but there is no evidence tending to show
that the settled population of its banks or of any part of its drainage
basin was or ever had been by any means excessive.
The Dalles, as stated above, was the best fishing station on the river,
and the settled population there may be taken as a fair index of that of
other favorable locations. The Dalles was visited by Ross in July, 1811,
and the following is his statement in regard to the population:
The main camp of the Indians is situated at the head of the narrows,
and may contain, during the salmon season, 3,000 souls, or more; but
the constant inhabitants of the place do not exceed 100 persons, and
are called Wy-am-pams; the rest are all foreigners from different
tribes throughout the country, who resort hither, not for the
purpose of catching salmon, but chiefly for gambling and
speculation.[2]
[Footnote 2: Adventures on the Columbia River, 1849, p. 117.]
And as it was on the Columbia with its enormous supply of fish, so was
it elsewhere in the United States.
Even the practice of agriculture, with its result of providing a more
certain and bountiful food supply, seems not to have had the effect of
materially augmenting the Indian population. At all events, it is in
California and Oregon, a region where agriculture was scarcely practiced
at all, that the most dense aboriginal population lived. There is no
reason to believe that there ever existed within the limits of the
region included in the map, with the possible exception of certain areas
in California, a population equal to the natural food supply. On the
contrary, there is every reason for believing that the population at the
time of the discovery might have been many times more than what it
actually was had a wise economy been practised.
The effect of wars in decimating the people has often been greatly
exaggerated. Since the advent of the white man on the continent, wars
have prevailed to a degree far beyond that existing at an earlier time.
From the contest which necessarily arose between the native tribes and
invading nations many wars resulted, and their history is well known.
Again, tribes driven from their ancestral homes often retreated to lands
previously occupied by other tribes, and intertribal wars resulted
therefrom. The acquisition of firearms and horses, through the agency of
white men, also had its influence, and when a commercial value was given
to furs and skins, the Indian abandoned agriculture to pursue hunting
and traffic, and sought new fields for such enterprises, and many new
contests arose from this cause. Altogether the character of the Indian
since the discovery of Columbus has been greatly changed, and he has
become far more warlike and predatory. Prior to that time, and far away
in the wilderness beyond such influence since that time, Indian tribes
seem to have lived together in comparative peace and to have settled
their difficulties by treaty methods. A few of the tribes had distinct
organizations for purposes of war; all recognized it to a greater or
less extent in their tribal organization; but from such study as has
been given the subject, and from the many facts collected from time to
time relating to the intercourse existing between tribes, it appears
that the Indians lived in comparative peace. Their accumulations were
not so great as to be tempting, and their modes of warfare were not
excessively destructive. Armed with clubs and spears and bows and
arrows, war could be prosecuted only by hand-to-hand conflict, and
depended largely upon individual prowess, while battle for plunder,
tribute, and conquest was almost unknown. Such intertribal wars as
occurred originated from other causes, such as infraction of rights
relating to hunting grounds and fisheries, and still oftener prejudices
growing out of their superstitions.
That which kept the Indian population down sprang from another source,
which has sometimes been neglected. The Indians had no reasonable or
efficacious system of medicine. They believed that diseases were caused
by unseen evil beings and by witchcraft, and every cough, every
toothache, every headache, every chill, every fever, every boil, and
every wound, in fact, all their ailments, were attributed to such cause.
Their so-called medicine practice was a horrible system of sorcery, and
to such superstition human life was sacrificed on an enormous scale. The
sufferers were given over to priest doctors to be tormented, bedeviled,
and destroyed; and a universal and profound belief in witchcraft made
them suspicious, and led to the killing of all suspected and obnoxious
people, and engendered blood feuds on a gigantic scale. It may be safely
said that while famine, pestilence, disease, and war may have killed
many, superstition killed more; in fact, a natural death in a savage
tent is a comparatively rare phenomenon; but death by sorcery, medicine,
and blood feud arising from a belief in witchcraft is exceedingly
common.
Scanty as was the population compared with the vast area teeming with
natural products capable of supporting human life, it may be safely said
that at the time of the discovery, and long prior thereto, practically
the whole of the area included in the present map was claimed and to
some extent occupied by Indian tribes; but the possession of land by the
Indian by no means implies occupancy in the modern or civilized sense of
the term. In the latter sense occupation means to a great extent
individual control and ownership. Very different was it with the
Indians. Individual ownership of land was, as a rule, a thing entirely
foreign to the Indian mind, and quite unknown in the culture stage to
which he belonged. All land, of whatever character or however utilized,
was held in common by the tribe, or in a few instances by the clan.
Apparently an exception to this broad statement is to be made in the
case of the Haida of the northwest coast, who have been studied by
Dawson. According to him[3] the land is divided among the different
families and is held as strictly personal property, with hereditary
rights or possessions descending from one generation to another. "The
lands may be bartered or given away. The larger salmon streams are,
however, often the property jointly of a number of families." The
tendency in this case is toward personal right in land.
[Footnote 3: Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878, p. 117.]
TRIBAL LAND.
For convenience of discussion, Indian tribal land may be divided into
three classes: First, the land occupied by the villages; second, the
land actually employed in agriculture; third, the land claimed by the
tribe but not occupied, except as a hunting ground.
_Village sites_.--The amount of land taken up as village sites varied
considerably in different parts of the country. It varied also in the
same tribe at different times. As a rule, the North American Indians
lived in communal houses of sufficient size to accommodate several
families. In such cases the village consisted of a few large structures
closely grouped together, so that it covered very little ground. When
territory was occupied by warlike tribes, the construction of rude
palisades around the villages and the necessities of defense generally
tended to compel the grouping of houses, and the permanent village sites
of even the more populous tribes covered only a very small area. In the
case of confederated tribes and in the time of peace the tendency was
for one or more families to establish more or less permanent settlements
away from the main village, where a livelihood was more readily
obtainable. Hence, in territory which had enjoyed a considerable
interval of peace the settlements were in the nature of small
agricultural communities, established at short distances from each other
and extending in the aggregate over a considerable extent of country. In
the case of populous tribes the villages were probably of the character
of the Choctaw towns described by Adair.[4] "The barrier towns, which
are next to the Muskohge and Chikkasah countries, are compactly settled
for social defense, according to the general method of other savage
nations; but the rest, both in the center and toward the Mississippi,
are only scattered plantations, as best suits a separate easy way of
living. A stranger might be in the middle of one of their populous,
extensive towns without seeing half a dozen houses in the direct course
of his path." More closely grouped settlements are described by Wayne in
American State Papers, 1793, in his account of an expedition down the
Maumee Valley, where he states that "The margins of the Miamis of the
Lake and the Au Glaize appear like one continuous village for a number
of miles, nor have I ever beheld such immense fields of corn in any part
of America from Canada to Florida." Such a chain of villages as this was
probably highly exceptional; but even under such circumstances the
village sites proper formed but a very small part of the total area
occupied.
[Footnote 4: Hist. of Am. Ind., 1775, p. 282.]
From the foregoing considerations it will be seen that the amount of
land occupied as village sites under any circumstances was
inconsiderable.
_Agricultural land_.--It is practically impossible to make an accurate
estimate of the relative amount of land devoted to agricultural purposes
by any one tribe or by any family of tribes. None of the factors which
enter into the problem are known to us with sufficient accuracy to
enable reliable estimates to be made of the amount of land tilled or of
the products derived from the tillage; and only in few cases have we
trustworthy estimates of the population of the tribe or tribes
practicing agriculture. Only a rough approximation of the truth can be
reached from the scanty data available and from a general knowledge of
Indian methods of subsistence.
The practice of agriculture was chiefly limited to the region south of
the St. Lawrence and east of the Mississippi. In this region it was far
more general and its results were far more important than is commonly
supposed. To the west of the Mississippi only comparatively small areas
were occupied by agricultural tribes and these lay chiefly in New Mexico
and Arizona and along the Arkansas, Platte, and Missouri Rivers. The
rest of that region was tenanted by non-agricultural tribes--unless
indeed the slight attention paid to the cultivation of tobacco by a few
of the west coast tribes, notably the Haida, may be considered
agriculture. Within the first mentioned area most of the tribes, perhaps
all, practiced agriculture to a greater or less extent, though
unquestionably the degree of reliance placed upon it as a means of
support differed much with different tribes and localities.
Among many tribes agriculture was relied upon to supply an
important--and perhaps in the case of a few tribes, the most
important--part of the food supply. The accounts of some of the early
explorers in the southern United States, where probably agriculture was
more systematized than elsewhere, mention corn fields of great extent,
and later knowledge of some northern tribes, as the Iroquois and some of
the Ohio Valley tribes, shows that they also raised corn in great
quantities. The practice of agriculture to a point where it shall prove
the main and constant supply of a people, however, implies a degree of
sedentariness to which our Indians as a rule had not attained and an
amount of steady labor without immediate return which was peculiarly
irksome to them. Moreover, the imperfect methods pursued in clearing,
planting, and cultivating sufficiently prove that the Indians, though
agriculturists, were in the early stages of development as such--a fact
also attested by the imperfect and one-sided division of labor between
the sexes, the men as a rule taking but small share of the burdensome
tasks of clearing land, planting, and harvesting.
It is certain that by no tribe of the United States was agriculture
pursued to such an extent as to free its members from the practice of
the hunter's or fisher's art. Admitting the most that can be claimed for
the Indian as an agriculturist, it may be stated that, whether because
of the small population or because of the crude manner in which his
operations were carried on, the amount of land devoted to agriculture
within the area in question was infinitesimally small as compared with
the total. Upon a map colored to show only the village sites and
agricultural land, the colors would appear in small spots, while by far
the greater part of the map would remain uncolored.
_Hunting claims_.--The great body of the land within the area mapped
which was occupied by agricultural tribes, and all the land outside it,
was held as a common hunting ground, and the tribal claim to territory,
independent of village sites and corn fields, amounted practically to
little else than hunting claims. The community of possession in the
tribe to the hunting ground was established and practically enforced by
hunting laws, which dealt with the divisions of game among the village,
or among the families of the hunters actually taking part in any
particular hunt. As a rule, such natural landmarks as rivers, lakes,
hills, and mountain chains served to mark with sufficient accuracy the
territorial tribal limits. In California, and among the Haida and
perhaps other tribes of the northwest coast, the value of certain
hunting and fishing claims led to their definition by artificial
boundaries, as by sticks or stones.[5]
[Footnote 5: Powers, Cont. N.A. Eth. 1877, vol. 3, p. 109: Dawson,
Queen Charlotte Islands, 1880, p. 117.]
Such precautions imply a large population, and in such regions as
California the killing of game upon the land of adjoining tribes was
rigidly prohibited and sternly punished.
As stated above, every part of the vast area included in the present map
is to be regarded as belonging, according to Indian ideas of land title,
to one or another of the Indian tribes. To determine the several tribal
possessions and to indicate the proper boundary lines between individual
tribes and linguistic families is a work of great difficulty. This is
due more to the imperfection and scantiness of available data concerning
tribal claims than to the absence of claimants or to any ambiguity in
the minds of the Indians as to the boundaries of their several
possessions.
Not only is precise data wanting respecting the limits of land actually
held or claimed by many tribes, but there are other tribes, which
disappeared early in the history of our country, the boundaries to whose
habitat is to be determined only in the most general way. Concerning
some of these, our information is so vague that the very linguistic
family they belonged to is in doubt. In the case of probably no one
family are the data sufficient in amount and accuracy to determine
positively the exact areas definitely claimed or actually held by the
tribes. Even in respect of the territory of many of the tribes of the
eastern United States, much of whose land was ceded by actual treaty
with the Government, doubt exists. The fixation of the boundary points,
when these are specifically mentioned in the treaty, as was the rule, is
often extremely difficult, owing to the frequent changes of geographic
names and the consequent disagreement of present with ancient maps.
Moreover, when the Indian's claim to his land had been admitted by
Government, and the latter sought to acquire a title through voluntary
cession by actual purchase, land assumed a value to the Indian never
attaching to it before.
Under these circumstances, either under plea of immemorial occupancy or
of possession by right of conquest, the land was often claimed, and the
claims urged with more or less plausibility by several tribes, sometimes
of the same linguistic family, sometimes of different families.
It was often found by the Government to be utterly impracticable to
decide between conflicting claims, and not infrequently the only way out
of the difficulty lay in admitting the claim of both parties, and in
paying for the land twice or thrice. It was customary for a number of
different tribes to take part in such treaties, and not infrequently
several linguistic families were represented. It was the rule for each
tribe, through its representatives, to cede its share of a certain
territory, the natural boundaries of which as a whole are usually
recorded with sufficient accuracy. The main purpose of the Government in
treaty-making being to obtain possession of the land, comparatively
little attention was bestowed to defining the exact areas occupied by
the several tribes taking part in a treaty, except in so far as the
matter was pressed upon attention by disputing claimants. Hence the
territory claimed by each tribe taking part in the treaty is rarely
described, and occasionally not all the tribes interested in the
proposed cession are even mentioned categorically. The latter statement
applies more particularly to the territory west of the Mississippi, the
data for determining ownership to which is much less precise, and the
doubt and confusion respecting tribal boundary lines correspondingly
greater than in the country east of that river. Under the above
circumstances, it will be readily understood that to determine tribal
boundaries within accurately drawn lines is in the vast majority of
cases quite impossible.
Imperfect and defective as the terms of the treaties frequently are as
regards the definition of tribal boundaries, they are by far the most
accurate and important of the means at our command for fixing boundary
lines upon the present map. By their aid the territorial possessions of
a considerable number of tribes have been determined with desirable
precision, and such areas definitely established have served as checks
upon the boundaries of other tribes, concerning the location and extent
of whose possessions little is known.
For establishing the boundaries of such tribes as are not mentioned in
treaties, and of those whose territorial possessions are not given with
sufficient minuteness, early historical accounts are all important. Such
accounts, of course, rarely indicate the territorial possessions of the
tribes with great precision. In many cases, however, the sites of
villages are accurately given. In others the source of information
concerning a tribe is contained in a general statement of the occupancy
of certain valleys or mountain ranges or areas at the heads of certain
rivers, no limiting lines whatever being assigned. In others, still, the
notice of a tribe is limited to a brief mention of the presence in a
certain locality of hunting or war parties.
Data of this loose character would of course be worthless in an attempt
to fix boundary lines in accordance with the ideas of the modern
surveyor. The relative positions of the families and the relative size
of the areas occupied by them, however, and not their exact boundaries,
are the chief concern in a linguistic map, and for the purpose of
establishing these, and, in a rough way, the boundaries of the territory
held by the tribes composing them, these data are very important, and
when compared with one another and corrected by more definite data, when
such are at hand, they have usually been found to be sufficient for the
purpose.
SUMMARY OF DEDUCTIONS.
In conclusion, the more important deductions derivable from the data
upon which the linguistic map is based, or that are suggested by it, may
be summarized as follows:
First, the North American Indian tribes, instead of speaking related
dialects, originating in a single parent language, in reality speak many
languages belonging to distinct families, which have no apparent unity
of origin.
Second, the Indian population of North America was greatly exaggerated
by early writers, and instead of being large was in reality small as
compared with the vast territory occupied and the abundant food supply;
and furthermore, the population had nowhere augmented sufficiently,
except possibly in California, to press upon the food supply.
Third, although representing a small population, the numerous tribes had
overspread North America and had possessed themselves of all the
territory, which, in the case of a great majority of tribes, was owned
in common by the tribe.
Fourth, prior to the advent of the European, the tribes were probably
nearly in a state of equilibrium, and were in the main sedentary, and
those tribes which can be said with propriety to have been nomadic
became so only after the advent of the European, and largely as the
direct result of the acquisition of the horse and the introduction of
firearms.
Fifth, while agriculture was general among the tribes of the eastern
United States, and while it was spreading among western tribes, its
products were nowhere sufficient wholly to emancipate the Indian from
the hunter state.
* * * * *
LINGUISTIC FAMILIES.
Within the area covered by the map there are recognized fifty-eight
distinct linguistic families.
These are enumerated in alphabetical order and each is accompanied by
a table of the synonyms of the family name, together with a brief
statement of the geographical area occupied by each family, so far as it
is known. A list of the principal tribes of each family also is given.
ADAIZAN FAMILY.
= Adaize, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 116, 306,
1836. Latham in Proc. Philolog. Soc., Lond., II, 31-59, 1846. Latham,
Opuscula, 293, 1860. Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, xcix, 1848.
Gallatin in Schoolcraft Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1853. Latham, Elements
Comp. Phil., 477, 1862 (referred to as one of the most isolated
languages of N.A.). Keane, App. to Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So.
Am.), 478, 1878 (or Adees).
= Adaizi, Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 406, 1847.
= Adaise, Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, 77, 1848.
= Adahi, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 342, 1850. Latham in Trans. Philolog.
Soc., Lond., 103, 1856. Latham, Opuscula, 366, 368, 1860. Latham,
Elements Comp., Phil., 473, 477, 1863 (same as his Adaize above).
= Adaes, Buschmann, Spuren der aztekischen Sprache, 424, 1859.
= Adees. Keane, App. to Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.) 478, 1878
(same as his Adaize).
= Ad['a]i, Gatschet, Creek Mig. Leg., 41, 1884.
Derivation: From a Caddo word hadai, sig. "brush wood."
This family was based upon the language spoken by a single tribe who,
according to Dr. Sibley, lived about the year 1800 near the old Spanish
fort or mission of Adaize, "about 40 miles from Natchitoches, below the
Yattassees, on a lake called Lac Macdon, which communicates with the
division of Red River that passes by Bayau Pierre."[6] A vocabulary of
about two hundred and fifty words is all that remains to us of their
language, which according to the collector, Dr. Sibley, "differs from
all others, and is so difficult to speak or understand that no nation
can speak ten words of it."
[Footnote 6: Travels of Lewis and Clarke, London, 1809, p. 189.]
It was from an examination of Sibley's vocabulary that Gallatin reached
the conclusion of the distinctness of this language from any other
known, an opinion accepted by most later authorities. A recent
comparison of this vocabulary by Mr. Gatschet, with several Caddoan
dialects, has led to the discovery that a considerable percentage of the
Ad['a]i words have a more or less remote affinity with Caddoan, and he
regards it as a Caddoan dialect. The amount of material, however,
necessary to establish its relationship to Caddoan is not at present
forthcoming, and it may be doubted if it ever will be, as recent inquiry
has failed to reveal the existence of a single member of the tribe, or
of any individual of the tribes once surrounding the Ad['a]i who
remembers a word of the language.
Mr. Gatschet found that some of the older Caddo in the Indian Territory
remembered the Ad['a]i as one of the tribes formerly belonging to the
Caddo Confederacy. More than this he was unable to learn from them.
Owing to their small numbers, their remoteness from lines of travel, and
their unwarlike character the Ad['a]i have cut but a small figure in
history, and accordingly the known facts regarding them are very meager.
The first historical mention of them appears to be by Cabeca de Vaca,
who in his "Naufragios," referring to his stay in Texas, about 1530,
calls them Atayos. Mention is also made of them by several of the early
French explorers of the Mississippi, as d'Iberville and Joutel.
The Mission of Adayes, so called from its proximity to the home of the
tribe, was established in 1715. In 1792 there was a partial emigration
of the Ad['a]i to the number of fourteen families to a site south of San
Antonio de Bejar, southwest Texas, where apparently they amalgamated
with the surrounding Indian population and were lost sight of. (From
documents preserved at the City Hall, San Antonio, and examined by Mr.
Gatschet in December, 1886.) The Ad['a]i who were left in their old homes
numbered one hundred in 1802, according to Baudry de Lozieres. According
to Sibley, in 1809 there were only "twenty men of them remaining, but
more women." In 1820 Morse mentions only thirty survivors.
ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
> Algonkin-Lenape, Gallatin in Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 23, 305,
1836. Berghaus (1845), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848. Ibid, 1852.
> Algonquin, Bancroft, Hist. U.S., III, 337, 1840. Prichard Phys.
Hist. Mankind, V, 381, 1847 (follows Gallatin).
> Algonkins, Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, xcix, 77,
1848. Gallatin in Schoolcraft Ind. Tribes, III, 401, 1853.
> Algonkin, Turner in Pac. R. R. Rept., III, pt. 3, 55, 1856 (gives
Delaware and Shawnee vocabs.). Hayden, Cont. Eth. and Phil. Missouri
Inds., 232, 1862 (treats only of Crees, Blackfeet, Shyennes). Hale in
Am. Antiq., 112, April, 1883 (treated with reference to migration).
< Algonkin, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc., Lond., 1856 (adds to
Gallatin's list of 1836 the Bethuck, Shyenne, Blackfoot, and
Arrapaho). Latham, Opuscula, 327, 1860 (as in preceding). Latham,
Elements Comp. Phil, 447, 1862.
< Algonquin, Keane, App. Stanford's Comp., (Cent. and S. Am.), 460,
465, 1878 (list includes the Maquas, an Iroquois tribe).
> Saskatschawiner, Berghaus, Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848 (probably
designates the Arapaho).
> Arapahoes, Berghaus, Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1852.
X Algonkin und Beothuk, Berghaus, Physik. Atlas, map 72, 1887.
Derivation: Contracted from Algomequin, an Algonkin word, signifying
"those on the other side of the river," i.e., the St. Lawrence River.
ALGONQUIAN AREA.
The area formerly occupied by the Algonquian family was more extensive
than that of any other linguistic stock in North America, their
territory reaching from Labrador to the Rocky Mountains, and from
Churchill River of Hudson Bay as far south at least as Pamlico Sound of
North Carolina. In the eastern part of this territory was an area
occupied by Iroquoian tribes, surrounded on almost all sides by their
Algonquian neighbors. On the south the Algonquian tribes were bordered
by those of Iroquoian and Siouan (Catawba) stock, on the southwest and
west by the Muskhogean and Siouan tribes, and on the northwest by the
Kitunahan and the great Athapascan families, while along the coast of
Labrador and the eastern shore of Hudson Bay they came in contact with
the Eskimo, who were gradually retreating before them to the north. In
Newfoundland they encountered the Beothukan family, consisting of but a
single tribe. A portion of the Shawnee at some early period had
separated from the main body of the tribe in central Tennessee and
pushed their way down to the Savannah River in South Carolina, where,
known as Savannahs, they carried on destructive wars with the
surrounding tribes until about the beginning of the eighteenth century
they were finally driven out and joined the Delaware in the north. Soon
afterwards the rest of the tribe was expelled by the Cherokee and
Chicasa, who thenceforward claimed all the country stretching north to
the Ohio River.
The Cheyenne and Arapaho, two allied tribes of this stock, had become
separated from their kindred on the north and had forced their way
through hostile tribes across the Missouri to the Black Hills country of
South Dakota, and more recently into Wyoming and Colorado, thus forming
the advance guard of the Algonquian stock in that direction, having the
Siouan tribes behind them and those of the Shoshonean family in front.
PRINCIPAL ALGONQUINIAN TRIBES.
Abnaki. Menominee. Ottawa.
Algonquin. Miami. Pamlico.
Arapaho. Micmac. Pennacook.
Cheyenne. Mohegan. Pequot.
Conoy. Montagnais. Piankishaw.
Cree. Montauk. Pottawotomi.
Delaware. Munsee. Powhatan.
Fox. Nanticoke. Sac.
Illinois. Narraganset. Shawnee.
Kickapoo. Nauset. Siksika.
Mahican. Nipmuc. Wampanoag.
Massachuset. Ojibwa. Wappinger.
_Population._--The present number of the Algonquian stock is about
95,600, of whom about 60,000 are in Canada and the remainder in the
United States. Below is given the population of the tribes officially
recognized, compiled chiefly from the United States Indian
Commissioner's report for 1889 and the Canadian Indian report for 1888.
It is impossible to give exact figures, owing to the fact that in many
instances two or more tribes are enumerated together, while many
individuals are living with other tribes or amongst the whites:
Abnaki:
"Oldtown Indians," Maine 410
Passamaquoddy Indians, Maine 215?
Abenakis of St. Francis and Becancour, Quebec 369
"Amalecites" of Temiscouata and Viger, Quebec 198
"Amalecites" of Madawaska, etc., New Brunswick 683
----- 1,874?
Algonquin:
Of Renfrew, Golden Lake and Carleton, Ontario 797
With Iroquois (total 131) at Gibson, Ontario 31?
With Iroquois at Lake of Two Mountains, Quebec 30
Quebec Province 3,909
----- 4,767?
Arapaho:
Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency, Indian Territory 1,272
Shoshone Agency, Wyoming (Northern Arapaho) 885
Carlisle school, Pennsylvania,
and Lawrence school, Kansas 55
----- 2,212
Cheyenne:
Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota (Northern Cheyenne) 517
Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency, Indian Territory 2,091
Carlisle school, Pennsylvania,
and Lawrence school, Kansas 153
Tongue River Agency, Montana (Northern Cheyenne) 865
----- 3,626
Cree:
With Salteau in Manitoba, etc., British America
(treaties Nos. 1, 2, and 5: total, 6,066) 3,066?
Plain and Wood Cree, treaty No. 6, Manitoba, etc. 5,790
Cree (with Salteau, etc.), treaty No. 4,
Manitoba, etc. 8,530
----- 17,386?
Delaware, etc.:
Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Agency, Indian Territory 95
Incorporated with Cherokee, Indian Territory 1,000?
Delaware with the Seneca in New York 3
Hampton and Lawrence schools 3
Muncie in New York,
principally with Onondaga and Seneca 36
Munsee with Stockbridge (total 133),
Green Bay Agency, Wis. 23?
Munsee with Chippewa at Pottawatomie and
Great Nemaha Agency, Kansas (total 75) 37?
Munsee with Chippewa on the Thames, Ontario 131
"Moravians" of the Thames, Ontario 288
Delaware with Six Nations on Grand River, Ontario 134
----- 1,750?
Kickapoo:
Sac and Fox Agency, Indian Territory 325
Pottawatomie and Great Nemaha Agency, Kansas 237
In Mexico 200?
----- 762?
Menominee:
Green Bay Agency, Wisconsin 1,311
Carlisle school 1
----- 1,312
Miami:
Quapaw Agency, Indian Territory 67
Indiana, no agency 300?
Lawrence and Carlisle schools 7
----- 374?
Micmac:
Restigouche, Maria, and Gaspe, Quebec 732
In Nova Scotia 2,145
New Brunswick 912
Prince Edward Island 319
----- 4,108
Misisauga:
Alnwick, New Credit, etc., Ontario 774
Monsoni, Maskegon, etc.:
Eastern Rupert's Land, British America 4,016
Montagnais:
Betsiamits, Lake St. John, Grand Romaine, etc., Quebec 1,607
Seven Islands, Quebec 312
----- 1,919
Nascapee:
Lower St. Lawrence, Quebec 2,860
Ojibwa:
White Earth Agency, Minnesota 6,263
La Pointe Agency, Wisconsin 4,778
Mackinac Agency, Michigan
(about one-third of 5,563 Ottawa and Chippewa) 1,854?
Mackinac Agency, Michigan (Chippewa alone) 1,351
Devil's Lake Agency, North Dakota
(Turtle Mountain Chippewa) 1,340
Pottawatomie and Great Nemaha Agency, Kansas
(one-half of 75 Chippewa and Muncie) 38?
Lawrence and Carlisle schools 15
"Ojibbewas" of Lake Superior and Lake Huron, Ontario 5,201
"Chippewas" of Sarnia, etc., Ontario 1,956
"Chippewas" with Munsees on Thames, Ontario 454
"Chippewas" with Pottawatomies
on Walpole Island, Ontario 658
"Ojibbewas" with Ottawas (total 1,856)
on Manitoulin and Cockburn Islands, Ontario 928?
"Salteaux" of treaty Nos. 3 and 4, etc.,
Manitoba, etc. 4,092
"Chippewas" with Crees in Manitoba, etc.,
treaties Nos. 1, 2, and 5 (total Chippewa
and Cree, 6,066) 3,000?
----- 31,928?
Ottawa:
Quapaw Agency, Indian Territory 137
Mackinac Agency, Michigan (5,563 Ottawa and Chippewa) 3,709?
Lawrence and Carlisle schools 20
With "Ojibbewas" on Manitoulin and Cockburn
Islands, Ontario 928
----- 4,794?
Peoria, etc.:
Quapaw Agency, Indian Territory 160
Lawrence and Carlisle schools 5
----- 165
Pottawatomie:
Sac and Fox Agency, Indian Territory 480
Pottawatomie and Great Nemaha Agency, Kansas 462
Mackinac Agency, Michigan 77
Prairie band, Wisconsin 280
Carlisle, Lawrence and Hampton schools 117
With Chippewa on Walpole Island, Ontario 166
----- 1,582
Sac and Fox:
Sac and Fox Agency, Indian Territory 515
Sac and Fox Agency, Iowa 381
Pottawatomie and Great Nemaha Agency, Kansas 77
Lawrence, Hampton, and Carlisle schools 8
----- 981
Shawnee:
Quapaw Agency, Indian Territory 79
Sac and Fox Agency, Indian Territory 640
Incorporated with Cherokee, Indian Territory 800?
Lawrence, Carlisle, and Hampton schools 40
----- 1,559?
Siksika:
Blackfoot Agency, Montana. (Blackfoot, Blood, Piegan) 1,811
Blackfoot reserves in Alberta, British America
(with Sarcee and Assiniboine) 4,932
----- 6,743
Stockbridge (Mahican):
Green Bay Agency, Wisconsin 110
In New York (with Tuscarora and Seneca) 7
Carlisle school 4
----- 121
ATHAPASCAN FAMILY.
> Athapascas, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 16,
305, 1836. Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 375, 1847. Gallatin in
Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, xcix, 77, 1848. Berghaus (1845),
Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848. Ibid., 1852. Turner in "Literary World,"
281, April 17, 1852 (refers Apache and Navajo to this family on
linguistic evidence).
> Athapaccas, Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 401, 1853.
(Evident misprint.) [Transcriber's Note: In original text.]
> Athapascan, Turner in Pac. R. R. Rep., III, pt. 3, 84, 1856. (Mere
mention of family; Apaches and congeners belong to this family, as
shown by him in "Literary World." Hoopah also asserted to be
Athapascan.)
> Athabaskans, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 302, 1850. (Under Northern
Athabaskans, includes Chippewyans Proper, Beaver Indians, Daho-dinnis,
Strong Bows, Hare Indians, Dog-ribs, Yellow Knives, Carriers. Under
Southern Athabaskans, includes (p. 308) Kwalioqwa, Tlatskanai, Umkwa.)
= Athabaskan, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 65, 96, 1856.
Buschmann (1854), Der athapaskische Sprachstamm, 250, 1856 (Hoopahs,
Apaches, and Navajoes included). Latham, Opuscula, 333, 1860. Latham,
El. Comp. Phil., 388, 1862. Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., II,
31-50, 1846 (indicates the coalescence of Athabascan family with
Esquimaux). Latham (1844), in Jour. Eth. Soc. Lond., I, 161, 1848
(Nagail and Taculli referred to Athabascan). Scouler (1846), in Jour.
Eth. Soc. Lond., I, 230, 1848. Latham, Opuscula, 257, 259, 276, 1860.
Keane, App. to Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 460, 463, 1878.
> Kinai, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 14, 305,
1836 (Kinai and Ugaljachmutzi; considered to form a distinct family,
though affirmed to have affinities with western Esquimaux and with
Athapascas). Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 440-448, 1847 (follows
Gallatin; also affirms a relationship to Aztec). Gallatin in Trans.
Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, 77, 1848.
> Kenay, Latham in Proc. Philolog. Soc. Lond., II, 32-34, 1846.
Latham, Opuscula, 275, 1860. Latham, Elements Comp. Phil., 389, 1862
(referred to Esquimaux stock).
> Kinaetzi, Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 441, 1847 (same as his
Kinai above).
> Kenai, Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, xcix, 1848 (see Kinai
above). Buschmann, Spuren der aztek. Sprache, 695, 1856 (refers it to
Athapaskan).
X Northern, Scouler in Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc. Lond., XI, 218, 1841.
(Includes Atnas, Kolchans, and Ken['a][i:]es of present family.)
X Haidah, Scouler, ibid., 224 (same as his Northern family).
> Chepeyans, Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 375, 1847 (same as
Athapascas above).
> Tahkali-Umkwa, Hale in U.S. Expl. Exp., VI, 198, 201, 569, 1846
("a branch of the great Chippewyan, or Athapascan, stock;" includes
Carriers, Qualioguas, Tlatskanies, Umguas). Gallatin, after Hale in
Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, 9, 1848.
> Digothi, Berghaus (1845), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848. Digothi,
Loucheux, ibid. 1852.
> Lipans, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 349, 1850 (Lipans (Sipans) between
Rio Arkansas and Rio Grande).
> Tototune, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 325, 1850 (seacoast south of the
Saintskla).
> Ugaljachmutzi, Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1853
("perhaps Athapascas").
> Umkwa, Latham in Proc. Philolog. Soc. Lond., VI, 72, 1854 (a single
tribe). Latham, Opuscula, 300, 1860.
> Tahlewah. Gibbs in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 422, 1853
(a single tribe). Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 76, 1856
(a single tribe). Latham. Opuscula, 342, 1860.
> Tolewa, Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 163, 1877 (vocab. from Smith
River, Oregon; affirmed to be distinct from any neighboring tongue).
Gatschet in Beach, Ind. Miscellany, 438, 1877.
> Hoo-pah, Gibbs in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 422, 1853 (tribe on
Lower Trinity, California).
> Hoopa, Powers in Overland Monthly, 135, August, 1872.
> H['u]-p[^a], Powers in Cont. N.A. Eth., III, 72, 1877 (affirmed to be
Athapascan).
= Tinneh, Dall in Proc. Am. Ass. A. S., XVIII, 269, 1869 (chiefly
Alaskan tribes). Dall, Alaska and its Resources, 428, 1870. Dall in
Cont. N.A. Eth., I, 24, 1877. Bancroft, Native Races, III, 562, 583,
603, 1882.
= Tinn['e], Gatschet in Mag. Am, Hist., 165, 1877 (special mention of
Hoopa, Rogue River, Umpqua.) Gatschet in Beach, Ind. Misc., 440, 1877.
Gatschet in Geog. Surv. W. 100th M., VII, 406, 1879. Tolmie and
Dawson, Comp. Vocabs., 62, 1884. Berghaus, Physik. Atlas, map 72,
1887.
= Tinney, Keane, App. to Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 460,
463, 1878.
X Klamath, Keane, App. to Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 475,
1878; or Lutuami, (Lototens and Tolewahs of his list belong here.)
Derivation: From the lake of the same name; signifying, according to
Lacombe, "place of hay and reeds."
As defined by Gallatin, the area occupied by this great family is
included in a line drawn from the mouth of the Churchill or Missinippi
River to its source; thence along the ridge which separates the north
branch of the Saskatchewan from those of the Athapascas to the Rocky
Mountains; and thence northwardly till within a hundred miles of the
Pacific Ocean, in latitude 52 deg. 30'.
The only tribe within the above area excepted by Gallatin as of probably
a different stock was the Quarrelers or Loucheux, living at the mouth of
Mackenzie River. This tribe, however, has since been ascertained to be
Athapascan.
The Athapascan family thus occupied almost the whole of British Columbia
and of Alaska, and was, with the exception of the Eskimo, by whom they
were cut off on nearly all sides from the ocean, the most northern
family in North America.
Since Gallatin's time the history of this family has been further
elucidated by the discovery on the part of Hale and Turner that isolated
branches of the stock have become established in Oregon, California, and
along the southern border of the United States.
The boundaries of the Athapascan family, as now understood, are best
given under three primary groups--Northern, Pacific, and Southern.
_Northern group_.--This includes all the Athapascan tribes of British
North America and Alaska. In the former region the Athapascans occupy
most of the western interior, being bounded on the north by the Arctic
Eskimo, who inhabit a narrow strip of coast; on the east by the Eskimo
of Hudson's Bay as far south as Churchill River, south of which river
the country is occupied by Algonquian tribes. On the south the
Athapascan tribes extended to the main ridge between the Athapasca and
Saskatchewan Rivers, where they met Algonquian tribes; west of this area
they were bounded on the south by Salishan tribes, the limits of whose
territory on Fraser River and its tributaries appear on Tolmie and
Dawson's map of 1884. On the west, in British Columbia, the Athapascan
tribes nowhere reach the coast, being cut off by the Wakashan, Salishan,
and Chimmesyan families.
The interior of Alaska is chiefly occupied by tribes of this family.
Eskimo tribes have encroached somewhat upon the interior along the
Yukon, Kuskokwim, Kowak, and Noatak Rivers, reaching on the Yukon to
somewhat below Shageluk Island,[7] and on the Kuskokwim nearly or quite
to Kolmakoff Redoubt.[8] Upon the two latter they reach quite to their
heads.[9] A few Kutchin tribes are (or have been) north of the Porcupine
and Yukon Rivers, but until recently it has not been known that they
extended north beyond the Yukon and Romanzoff Mountains. Explorations of
Lieutenant Stoney, in 1885, establish the fact that the region to the
north of those mountains is occupied by Athapascan tribes, and the map
is colored accordingly. Only in two places in Alaska do the Athapascan
tribes reach the coast--the K'naia-khotana, on Cook's Inlet, and the
Ahtena, of Copper River.
[Footnote 7: Dall, Map Alaska, 1877.]
[Footnote 8: Fide Nelson in Dall's address, Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci.,
1885, p. 13.]
[Footnote 9: Cruise of the _Corwin_, 1887.]
_Pacific group_.--Unlike the tribes of the Northern group, most of those
of the Pacific group have removed from their priscan habitats since the
advent of the white race. The Pacific group embraces the following:
Kwalhioqua, formerly on Willopah River, Washington, near the Lower
Chinook;[10] Owilapsh, formerly between Shoalwater Bay and the heads of
the Chehalis River, Washington, the territory of these two tribes being
practically continuous; Tlatscanai, formerly on a small stream on the
northwest side of Wapatoo Island.[11] Gibbs was informed by an old
Indian that this tribe "formerly owned the prairies on the Tsihalis at
the mouth of the Skukumchuck, but, on the failure of game, left the
country, crossed the Columbia River, and occupied the mountains to the
south"--a statement of too uncertain character to be depended upon; the
Athapascan tribes now on the Grande Ronde and Siletz Reservations,
Oregon,[12] whose villages on and near the coast extended from Coquille
River southward to the California line, including, among others, the
Upper Coquille, Sixes, Euchre, Creek, Joshua, Tutu t[^u]nn[ve], and other
"Rogue River" or "Tou-touten bands," Chasta Costa, Galice Creek,
Naltunne t[^u]nn[ve] and Chetco villages;[13] the Athapascan villages
formerly on Smith River and tributaries, California;[14] those villages
extending southward from Smith River along the California coast to the
mouth of Klamath River;[15] the Hup[^a] villages or "clans" formerly on
Lower Trinity River, California;[16] the Kenesti or Wailakki (2),
located as follows: "They live along the western slope of the Shasta
Mountains, from North Eel River, above Round Valley, to Hay Fork; along
Eel and Mad Rivers, extending down the latter about to Low Gap; also on
Dobbins and Larrabie Creeks;"[17] and Saiaz, who "formerly occupied the
tongue of land jutting down between Eel River and Van Dusen's Fork."[18]
[Footnote 10: Gibbs in Pac. R. R. Rep. I, 1855, p. 428.]
[Footnote 11: Lewis and Clarke, Exp., 1814, vol. 2, p. 382.]
[Footnote 12: Gatschet and Dorsey, MS., 1883-'84.]
[Footnote 13: Dorsey, MS., map, 1884, B.E.]
[Footnote 14: Hamilton, MS., Haynarger Vocab., B.E.; Powers,
Contr. N.A. Ethn., 1877, vol. 3, p. 65.]
[Footnote 15: Dorsey, MS., map, 1884, B.E.]
[Footnote 16: Powers, Contr. N.A. Ethn., 1877, vol. 3, pp. 72, 73.]
[Footnote 17: Powers, Contr. N.A. Ethn., 1877, vol. 3, p. 114.]
[Footnote 18: Powers, Contr. N.A. Ethn., 1877, vol. 3, p. 122.]
_Southern group_.--Includes the Navajo, Apache, and Lipan. Engineer Jose
Cortez, one of the earliest authorities on these tribes, writing in
1799, defines the boundaries of the Lipan and Apache as extending north
and south from 29 deg. N. to 36 deg. N., and east and west from 99 deg. W.
to 114 deg. W.; in other words from central Texas nearly to the Colorado
River in Arizona, where they met tribes of the Yuman stock. The Lipan
occupied the eastern part of the above territory, extending in Texas from
the Comanche country (about Red River) south to the Rio Grande.[19] More
recently both Lipan and Apache have gradually moved southward into
Mexico where they extend as far as Durango.[20]
[Footnote 19: Cortez in Pac. R. R. Rep., 1856, vol. 3, pt. 3,
pp. 118, 119.]
[Footnote 20: Bartlett, Pers. Narr., 1854; Orozco y Berra, Geog.,
1864.]
The Navajo, since first known to history, have occupied the country on
and south of the San Juan River in northern New Mexico and Arizona and
extending into Colorado and Utah. They were surrounded on all sides by
the cognate Apache except upon the north, where they meet Shoshonean
tribes.
PRINCIPAL TRIBES.
A. Northern group: B. Pacific group: C. Southern group:
Ah-tena. [vA]ta[va]k[^u]t. [*Ataakut] Arivaipa.
Kaiyuh-khotana. Chasta Costa. Chiricahua.
Kcaltana. Chetco. Coyotero.
K'naia-khotana. Dakube tede Faraone.
Koyukukhotana. (on Applegate Creek). Gileno.
Kutchin. Euchre Creek. Jicarilla.
Montagnais. Hup[^a]. Lipan.
Montagnards. K[va]lts'erea t[^u]nn[ve]. Llanero.
[*Kalts'erea tunne]
Nagailer. Kenesti or Wailakki. Mescalero.
Slave. Kwalhioqua. Mimbreno.
Sluacus-tinneh. Kwa[t]ami. Mogollon.
Taculli. Micikqw[^u]tme t[^u]nn[ve]. Na-isha.
Tahl-tan (1). Mikono t[^u]nn[ve]. Navajo.
Unakhotana. Owilapsh. Pinal Coyotero.
Qwinct[^u]nnet[^u]n. Tch[ve]k[^u]n.
Saiaz. Tchishi.
Talt[^u]ctun t[^u]de.
(on Galice Creek).
Tc[^e]m[^e] (Joshuas).
Tc[ve]tl[ve]stcan t[^u]nn[ve].
[*Tcetlestcan tunne]
Terwar.
Tlatscanai.
Tolowa.
Tutu t[^u]nn[ve].
_Population._--The present number of the Athapascan family is about
32,899, of whom about 8,595, constituting the Northern group, are in
Alaska and British North America, according to Dall, Dawson, and the
Canadian Indian-Report for 1888; about 895, comprising the Pacific
group, are in Washington, Oregon, and California; and about 23,409,
belonging to the Southern group, are in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado,
and Indian Territory. Besides these are the Lipan and some refugee
Apache, who are in Mexico. These have not been included in the above
enumeration, as there are no means of ascertaining their number.
Northern group.--This may be said to consist of the following:
Ah-tena (1877) 364?
Ai-yan (1888) 250
Al-ta-tin (Sicannie) estimated (1888) 500
of whom there are at Fort Halkett (1887) 73
of whom there are at Fort Liard (1887) 78
Chippewyan, Yellow Knives, with a few Slave and Dog Rib
at Fort Resolution 469
Dog Rib at Fort Norman 133
Dog Rib, Slave, and Yellow Knives at Fort Rae 657
Hare at Fort Good Hope 364
Hare at Fort Norman 103
Kai-yuh-kho-t['a]na (1877), Koyukukhot['a]na (1877),
and Unakhot['a]na (1877) 2,000?
K'nai-a Khot['a]na (1880) 250?
Kutchin and Bastard Loucheux at Fort Good Hope 95
Kutchin at Peel River and La Pierre's House 337
Kutchin on the Yukon (six tribes) 842
Nahanie at Fort Good Hope 8
Nahanie at Fort Halkett (including Mauvais Monde,
Bastard Nahanie, and Mountain Indians) 332
Nahanie at Fort Liard 38
Nahanie at Fort Norman 43
---
421
Nahanie at Fort Simpson and Big Island
(Hudson Bay Company's Territory) 87
Slave, Dog Rib, and Hare at Fort Simpson and Big Island
(Hudson Bay Company's Territory) 658
Slave at Fort Liard 281
Slave at Fort Norman 84
Ten['a]n Kutchin (1877) 700?
-----
8,595?
To the Pacific Group may be assigned the following:
Hupa Indians, on Hoopa Valley Reservation, California 468
Rogue River Indians at Grande Ronde Reservation, Oregon 47
Siletz Reservation, Oregon
(about one-half the Indians thereon) 300?
Umpqua at Grande Ronde Reservation, Oregon 80
---
895?
Southern Group, consisting of Apache, Lipan, and Navajo:
Apache children at Carlisle, Pennsylvania 142
Apache prisoners at Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama 356
Coyotero Apache (San Carlos Reservation) 733?
Jicarilla Apache (Southern Ute Reservation, Colorado) 808
Lipan with Tonkaway on Oakland Reserve, Indian Territory 15?
Mescalero Apache (Mescalero Reservation, New Mexico) 513
Na-isha Apache (Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Reservation,
Indian Territory) 326
Navajo (most on Navajo Reservation, Arizona
and New Mexico; 4 at Carlisle, Pennsylvania) 17,208
San Carlos Apache (San Carlos Reservation, Arizona) 1,352?
White Mountain Apache (San Carlos Reservation, Arizona) 36
White Mountain Apache
(under military at Camp Apache, Arizona) 1,920
------
23,409?
ATTACAPAN FAMILY.
= Attacapas, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 116,
306, 1836. Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II. pt. 1, xcix, 77,
1848. Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 343, 1850 (includes Attacapas and
Carankuas). Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1853.
Buschmann, Spuren der aztek. Sprache, 426, 1859.
= Attacapa, Latham in Proc. Philolog. Soc. Lond., II, 31-50, 1846.
Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 406, 1847 (or "Men eaters"). Latham
in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 105, 1856. Latham, Opuscula, 293,
1860.
= Attakapa, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 103, 1856. Latham,
Opuscula, 366, 1860. Latham, El. Comp. Phil., 477, 1862 (referred to
as one of the two most isolated languages of N.A.).
= At['a]kapa, Gatschet, Creek Mig. Leg., I. 45, 1884. Gatschet in
Science, 414, Apr. 29, 1887.
Derivation: From a Choctaw word meaning "man-eater."
Little is known of the tribe, the language of which forms the basis of
the present family. The sole knowledge possessed by Gallatin was derived
from a vocabulary and some scanty information furnished by Dr. John
Sibley, who collected his material in the year 1805. Gallatin states
that the tribe was reduced to 50 men. According to Dr. Sibley the
Attacapa language was spoken also by another tribe, the "Carankouas,"
who lived on the coast of Texas, and who conversed in their own language
besides. In 1885 Mr. Gatschet visited the section formerly inhabited by
the Attacapa and after much search discovered one man and two women at
Lake Charles, Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, and another woman living 10
miles to the south; he also heard of five other women then scattered in
western Texas; these are thought to be the only survivors of the tribe.
Mr. Gatschet collected some two thousand words and a considerable body
of text. His vocabulary differs considerably from the one furnished by
Dr. Sibley and published by Gallatin, and indicates that the language of
the western branch of the tribe was dialectically distinct from that of
their brethren farther to the east.
The above material seems to show that the Attacapa language is distinct
from all others, except possibly the Chitimachan.
BEOTHUKAN FAMILY.
= Bethuck, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 58, 1856 (stated to
be "Algonkin rather than aught else"). Latham, Opuscula, 327, 1860.
Latham, El. Comp. Phil., 453, 1862.
= Beothuk, Gatschet in Proc. Am. Philosoph. Soc., 408, Oct., 1885.
Gatschet, ibid., 411, July, 1886 (language affirmed to represent a
distinct linguistic family). Gatschet, ibid., 1, Jan-June, 1890.
Derivation: Beothuk signifies "Indian" or "red Indian."
The position of the language spoken by the aborigines of Newfoundland
must be considered to be doubtful.
In 1846 Latham examined the material then accessible, and was led to the
somewhat ambiguous statement that the language "was akin to those of the
ordinary American Indians rather than to the Eskimo; further
investigation showing that, of the ordinary American languages, it was
Algonkin rather than aught else."
Since then Mr. Gatschet has been able to examine a much larger and more
satisfactory body of material, and although neither in amount nor
quality is the material sufficient to permit final and satisfactory
deductions, yet so far as it goes it shows that the language is quite
distinct from any of the Algonquian dialects, and in fact from any other
American tongue.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.
It seems highly probable that the whole of Newfoundland at the time of
its discovery by Cabot in 1497 was inhabited by Beothuk Indians.
In 1534 Cartier met with Indians inhabiting the southeastern part of the
island, who, very likely, were of this people, though the description is
too vague to permit certain identification. A century later the southern
portion of the island appears to have been abandoned by these Indians,
whoever they were, on account of European settlements, and only the
northern and eastern parts of the island were occupied by them. About
the beginning of the eighteenth century western Newfoundland was
colonized by the Micmac from Nova Scotia. As a consequence of the
persistent warfare which followed the advent of the latter and which was
also waged against the Beothuk by the Europeans, especially the French,
the Beothuk rapidly wasted in numbers. Their main territory was soon
confined to the neighborhood of the Exploits River. The tribe was
finally lost sight of about 1827, having become extinct, or possibly the
few survivors having crossed to the Labrador coast and joined the
Nascapi with whom the tribe had always been on friendly terms.
Upon the map only the small portion of the island is given to the
Beothuk which is known definitely to have been occupied by them, viz.,
the neighborhood of the Exploits River, though, as stated above, it
seems probable that the entire island was once in their possession.
CADDOAN FAMILY.
> Caddoes, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 116, 306,
1836 (based on Caddoes alone). Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 406,
1847. Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1858 [gives as
languages Caddo, Red River, (Nandakoes, Tachies, Nabedaches)].
> Caddokies, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 116,
1836 (same as his Caddoes). Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 406,
1847.
> Caddo, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., II, 31-50, 1846
(indicates affinities with Iroquois, Muskoge, Catawba, Pawnee).
Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, xcix, 77, 1848, (Caddo
only). Berghaus (1845), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848 (Caddos, etc.).
Ibid., 1852. Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 338, 1850 (between the
Mississippi and Sabine). Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc., Lond., 101,
1856. Turner in Pac. R. R. Rep., III, pt. 3, 55, 70, 1856 (finds
resemblances to Pawnee but keeps them separate). Buschmann, Spuren der
aztek. Sprache, 426, 448, 1859. Latham, Opuscula, 290, 366, 1860.
> Caddo, Latham, Elements Comp. Phil., 470, 1862 (includes Pawni and
Riccari).
> Pawnees, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 128, 306,
1836 (two nations: Pawnees proper and Ricaras or Black Pawnees).
Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 408, 1847 (follows Gallatin).
Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, xcix, 1848. Latham, Nat.
Hist. Man, 344, 1850 (or Panis; includes Loup and Republican Pawnees).
Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1853 (gives as
languages: Pawnees, Ricaras, Tawakeroes, Towekas, Wachos?). Hayden,
Cont. Eth. and Phil. Missouri Indians, 232, 345, 1863 (includes
Pawnees and Arikaras).
> Panis, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 117, 128,
1836 (of Red River of Texas; mention of villages; doubtfully indicated
as of Pawnee family). Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 407, 1847
(supposed from name to be of same race with Pawnees of the Arkansa).
Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 344, 1850 (Pawnees or). Gallatin in
Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 403, 1853 (here kept separate from
Pawnee family).
> Pawnies, Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, 77, 1848 (see
Pawnee above).
> Pahnies, Berghaus (1845), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848. Ibid., 1852.
> Pawnee(?), Turner in Pac. R. R. Rep., III, pt. 3, 55, 65, 1856
(Kichai and Hueco vocabularies).
= Pawnee, Keane, App. to Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 478,
1878 (gives four groups, viz: Pawnees proper; Arickarees; Wichitas;
Caddoes).
= Pani, Gatschet, Creek Mig. Legend, I, 42, 1884. Berghaus, Physik.
Atlas, map 72, 1887.
> Towiaches. Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 116,
128, 1836 (same as Panis above). Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V,
407, 1847.
> Towiachs, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 349, 1850 (includes Towiach,
Tawakenoes, Towecas?, Wacos).
> Towiacks, Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1853.
> Natchitoches, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 116,
1836 (stated by Dr. Sibley to speak a language different from any
other). Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 342, 1850. Prichard, Phys. Hist.
Mankind, V, 406, 1847 (after Gallatin). Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind.
Tribes, III, 402, 1853 (a single tribe only).
> Aliche, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 349, 1850 (near Nacogdoches; not
classified).
> Yatassees, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 116,
1836 (the single tribe; said by Dr. Sibley to be different from any
other; referred to as a family).
> Riccarees, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 344, 1850 (kept distinct from
Pawnee family).
> Washita, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc., Lond., 103, 1856.
Buschmann, Spuren der aztek. Sprache, 441, 1859 (revokes previous
opinion of its distinctness and refers it to Pawnee family).
> Witchitas, Buschmann, ibid., (same as his Washita).
Derivation: From the Caddo term ka[']-ede, signifying "chief" (Gatschet).
The Pawnee and Caddo, now known to be of the same linguistic family,
were supposed by Gallatin and by many later writers to be distinct, and
accordingly both names appear in the Archaeologia Americana as family
designations. Both names are unobjectionable, but as the term Caddo has
priority by a few pages preference is given to it.
Gallatin states "that the Caddoes formerly lived 300 miles up Red River
but have now moved to a branch of Red River." He refers to the
Nandakoes, the Inies or Tachies, and the Nabedaches as speaking dialects
of the Caddo language.
Under Pawnee two tribes were included by Gallatin: The Pawnees proper
and the Ricaras. The Pawnee tribes occupied the country on the Platte
River adjoining the Loup Fork. The Ricara towns were on the upper
Missouri in latitude 46 deg. 30'. The boundaries of the Caddoan family,
as at present understood, can best be given under three primary groups,
Northern, Middle, and Southern.
_Northern group_.--This comprises the Arikara or Ree, now confined to a
small village (on Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota,) which they
share with the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes of the Siouan family. The
Arikara are the remains of ten different tribes of "Paneas," who had
been driven from their country lower down the Missouri River (near the
Ponka habitat in northern Nebraska) by the Dakota. In 1804 they were in
three villages, nearer their present location.[21]
[Footnote 21: Lewis, Travels of Lewis and Clarke, 15, 1809.]
According to Omaha tradition, the Arikara were their allies when these
two tribes and several others were east of the Mississippi River.[22]
Fort Berthold Reservation, their present abode, is in the northwest
corner of North Dakota.
[Footnote 22: Dorsey in Am. Naturalist, March, 1886, p. 215.]
_Middle group_.--This includes the four tribes or villages of Pawnee,
the Grand, Republican, Tapage, and Skidi. Dunbar says: "The original
hunting ground of the Pawnee extended from the Niobrara," in Nebraska,
"south to the Arkansas, but no definite boundaries can be fixed." In
modern times their villages have been on the Platte River west of
Columbus, Nebraska. The Omaha and Oto were sometimes southeast of them
near the mouth of the Platte, and the Comanche were northwest of them on
the upper part of one of the branches of the Loup Fork.[23] The Pawnee
were removed to Indian Territory in 1876. The Grand Pawnee and Tapage
did not wander far from their habitat on the Platte. The Republican
Pawnee separated from the Grand about the year 1796, and made a village
on a "large northwardly branch of the Kansas River, to which they have
given their name; afterwards they subdivided, and lived in different
parts of the country on the waters of Kansas River. In 1805 they
rejoined the Grand Pawnee." The Skidi (Panimaha, or Pawnee Loup),
according to Omaha tradition,[24] formerly dwelt east of the Mississippi
River, where they were the allies of the Arikara, Omaha, Ponka, etc.
After their passage of the Missouri they were conquered by the Grand
Pawnee, Tapage, and Republican tribes, with whom they have remained to
this day. De L'Isle[25] gives twelve Panimaha villages on the Missouri
River north of the Pani villages on the Kansas River.
[Footnote 23: Dorsey, Omaha map of Nebraska.]
[Footnote 24: Dorsey in Am. Nat., March, 1886, p. 215.]
[Footnote 25: Carte de la Louisiane, 1718.]
_Southern group_.--This includes the Caddo, Wichita, Kichai, and other
tribes or villages which were formerly in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas,
and Indian Territory.
The Caddo and Kichai have undoubtedly been removed from their priscan
habitats, but the Wichita, judging from the survival of local names
(Washita River, Indian Territory, Wichita Falls, Texas) and the
statement of La Harpe,[26] are now in or near one of their early abodes.
Dr. Sibley[27] locates the Caddo habitat 35 miles west of the main
branch of Red River, being 120 miles by land from Natchitoches, and they
formerly lived 375 miles higher up. Cornell's Atlas (1870) places Caddo
Lake in the northwest corner of Louisiana, in Caddo County. It also
gives both Washita and Witchita as the name of a tributary of Red River
of Louisiana. This duplication of names seems to show that the Wichita
migrated from northwestern Louisiana and southwestern Arkansas to the
Indian Territory. After comparing the statements of Dr. Sibley (as
above) respecting the habitats of the Anadarko, Ioni, Nabadache, and
Eyish with those of Schermerhorn respecting the K[a:]do hadatco,[28] of
Le Page Du Pratz (1758) concerning the Natchitoches, of Tonti[29] and La
Harpe[30] about the Yatasi, of La Harpe (as above) about the Wichita,
and of Sibley concerning the Kichai, we are led to fix upon the
following as the approximate boundaries of the habitat of the southern
group of the Caddoan family: Beginning on the northwest with that part
of Indian Territory now occupied by the Wichita, Chickasaw, and Kiowa
and Comanche Reservations, and running along the southern border of the
Choctaw Reservation to the Arkansas line; thence due east to the
headwaters of Washita or Witchita River, Polk County, Arkansas; thence
through Arkansas and Louisiana along the western bank of that river to
its mouth; thence southwest through Louisiana striking the Sabine River
near Salem and Belgrade; thence southwest through Texas to Tawakonay
Creek, and along that stream to the Brazos River; thence following that
stream to Palo Pinto, Texas; thence northwest to the mouth of the North
Fork of Red River; and thence to the beginning.
[Footnote 26: In 1719, _fide_ Margry, VI, 289, "the Ousita village
is on the southwest branch of the Arkansas River."]
[Footnote 27: 1805, in Lewis and Clarke, Discov., 1806, p. 66.]
[Footnote 28: Second Mass, Hist. Coll., vol. 2, 1814, p. 23.]
[Footnote 29: 1690, in French, Hist. Coll. La., vol. 1, p. 72.]
[Footnote 30: 1719, in Margry, vol. 6, p. 264.]
PRINCIPAL TRIBES.
A. Pawnee.
Grand Pawnee.
Tappas.
Republican Pawnee.
Skidi.
B. Arikara.
C. Wichita.
(Ki-ci[']-tcac, Omaha pronunciation of the name of a Pawnee tribe,
Ki-dhi[']-chash or Ki-ri[']-chash).
D. Kichai.
E. Caddo (K[:a][']-do).
_Population._--The present number of the Caddoan stock is 2,259, of whom
447 are on the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota, and the rest in
the Indian Territory, some on the Ponca, Pawnee, and Otoe Reservation,
the others on the Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Reservation. Below is
given the population of the tribes officially recognized, compiled
chiefly from the Indian Report for 1889:
Arikara 448
Pawnee 824
Wichita 176
Towakarehu 145
Waco 64
--- 385
Kichai 63
Caddo 539
-----
Total 2,259
CHIMAKUAN FAMILY.
= Chimakum, Gibbs in Pac. R. R. Rep., I, 431, 1855 (family doubtful).
= Chemakum, Eells in Am. Antiquarian, 52, Oct., 1880 (considers
language different from any of its neighbors).
< Puget Sound Group, Keane, App. Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.),
474, 1878 (Chinakum included in this group).
< Nootka, Bancroft, Native Races, III, 564, 1882 (contains Chimakum).
Derivation unknown.
Concerning this language Gibbs, as above cited, states as follows:
The language of the Chimakum "differs materially from either that of the
Clallams or the Nisqually, and is not understood by any of their
neighbors. In fact, they seem to have maintained it a State secret. To
what family it will ultimately be referred, cannot now be decided."
Eells also asserts the distinctness of this language from any of its
neighbors. Neither of the above authors assigned the language family
rank, and accordingly Mr. Gatschet, who has made a comparison of
vocabularies and finds the language to be quite distinct from any other,
gives it the above name.
The Chimakum are said to have been formerly one of the largest and most
powerful tribes of Puget Sound. Their warlike habits early tended to
diminish their numbers, and when visited by Gibbs in 1854 they counted
only about seventy individuals. This small remnant occupied some fifteen
small lodges on Port Townsend Bay. According to Gibbs "their territory
seems to have embraced the shore from Port Townsend to Port Ludlow."[31]
In 1884 there were, according to Mr. Myron Eells, about twenty
individuals left, most of whom are living near Port Townsend,
Washington. Three or four live upon the Skokomish Reservation at the
southern end of Hood's Canal.
[Footnote 31: Dr. Boas was informed in 1889, by a surviving Chimakum
woman and several Clallam, that the tribe was confined to the
peninsula between Hood's Canal and Port Townsend.]
The Quile-ute, of whom in 1889 there were 252 living on the Pacific
south of Cape Flattery, belong to the family. The Hoh, a sub-tribe of
the latter, number 71 and are under the Puyallup Agency.
PRINCIPAL TRIBES.
The following tribes are recognized:
Chimakum.
Quile-ute.
CHIMARIKAN FAMILY.
= Chim-a-ri[']-ko, Powell in Cont. N.A. Eth., III, 474, 1877. Gatschet
in Mag. Am. Hist., 255, April, 1882 (stated to be a distinct family).
According to Powers, this family was represented, so far as known, by
two tribes in California, one the Chi-m['a]l-a-kwe, living on New River,
a branch of the Trinity, the other the Chimariko, residing upon the
Trinity itself from Burnt Ranch up to the mouth of North Fork,
California. The two tribes are said to have been as numerous formerly as
the Hupa, by whom they were overcome and nearly exterminated. Upon the
arrival of the Americans only twenty-five of the Chimalakwe were left.
In 1875 Powers collected a Chimariko vocabulary of about two hundred
words from a woman, supposed to be one of the last three women of that
tribe. In 1889 Mr. Curtin, while in Hoopa Valley, found a Chimariko man
seventy or more years old, who is believed to be one of the two living
survivors of the tribe. Mr. Curtin obtained a good vocabulary and much
valuable information relative to the former habitat and history of the
tribe. Although a study of these vocabularies reveals a number of words
having correspondences with the Kulanapan (Pomo) equivalents, yet the
greater number show no affinities with the dialects of the latter
family, or indeed with any other. The family is therefore classed as
distinct.
PRINCIPAL TRIBES.
Chimariko.
Chimalakwe.
CHIMMESYAN FAMILY.
= Chimmesyan, Latham in Jour. Eth. Soc. Lond., I, 154, 1848 (between
53 deg. 30' and 55 deg. 30' N.L.). Latham, Opuscula, 250, 1860.
Chemmesyan, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 300, 1850 (includes Naaskok,
Chemmesyan, Kitshatlah, Kethumish). Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc.
Lond., 72, 1856. Latham, Opuscula, 339, 1860. Latham, Elements Comp.
Phil., 401, 1862.
= Chymseyans, Kane, Wanderings of an Artist, app., 1859 (a census of
tribes of N.W. coast classified by languages).
= Chimayans, Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, V, 487, 1855 (gives Kane's list
but with many orthographical changes). Dall in Proc. Am. Ass., 269,
1869 (published in 1870). Dall in Cont. N.A. Eth., I, 36, 39, 40, 1877
(probably distinct from T'linkets). Bancroft, Native Races, III, 564,
607, 1882.
= Tshimsian, Tolmie and Dawson, Comp. Vocabs., 14-25, 1884.
= Tsimpsi-an['], Dall in Proc. Am. Ass., 379, 1885 (mere mention of
family).
X Northern, Scouler in Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc. Lond., XI, 220, 1841
(includes Chimmesyans).
X Haidah, Scouler in Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc. Lond., XI, 220, 1841 (same
as his Northern family).
< Naas, Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, c, 1848
(including Chimmesyan). Berghaus (1851), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1852.
< Naass, Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, 77, 1848.
Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1853.
= Nasse, Dall in Cont. N.A. Eth., I, 36, 40, 1877 (or Chimsyan).
< Nass, Bancroft, Nat. Races, III, 564, 606, 1882 (includes Nass and
Sebassa Indians of this family, also Hailtza).
= Hydahs, Keane, App. to Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 473,
1878 (includes Tsimsheeans, Nass, Skeenas, Sebasses of present
family).
Derivation: From the Chimsian ts'em, "on;" kcian, "main river:" "On the
main (Skeena) river."
This name appears in a paper of Latham's published in 1848. To it is
referred a vocabulary of Tolmie's. The area where it is spoken is said
by Latham to be 50 deg. 30' and 55 deg. 30'. The name has become
established by long usage, and it is chiefly on this account that it has
been given preference over the Naas of Gallatin of the same year. The
latter name was given by Gallatin to a group of languages now known to
be not related, viz, Hailstla, Haceltzuk Billechola, and Chimeysan.
Billechola belongs under Salishan, a family name of Gallatin's of 1836.
Were it necessary to take Naas as a family name it would best apply to
Chimsian, it being the name of a dialect and village of Chimsian
Indians, while it has no pertinency whatever to Hailstla and Haceltzuk,
which are closely related and belong to a family quite distinct from the
Chimmesyan. As stated above, however, the term Naas is rejected in favor
of Chimmesyan of the same date.
For the boundaries of this family the linguistic map published by Tolmie
and Dawson, in 1884, is followed.
PRINCIPAL TRIBES.
Following is a list of the Chimmesyan tribes, according to Boas:[32]
A. Nasqa[']:
Nasqa['].
Gyitksa[']n.
B. Tsimshian proper:
Ts'emsia[']n.
Gyits'umr[a:][']lon.
Gyits'ala[']ser.
Gyitq[-a][']tla.
Gyitg.[-a][']ata.
Gyidesdzo['].
[Footnote 32: B.A.A.S. Fifth Rep. of Committee on NW. Tribes of
Canada. Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting, 1889, pp. 8-9.]
_Population._--The Canadian Indian Report for 1888 records a total for
all the tribes of this family of 5,000. In the fall of 1887 about 1,000
of these Indians, in charge of Mr. William Duncan, removed to Annette
Island, about 60 miles north of the southern boundary of Alaska, near
Port Chester, where they have founded a new settlement called New
Metlakahtla. Here houses have been erected, day and industrial schools
established, and the Indians are understood to be making remarkable
progress in civilization.
CHINOOKAN FAMILY.
> Chinooks, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 134,
306, 1836 (a single tribe at mouth of Columbia).
= Chinooks, Hale in U.S. Expl. Expd., VI, 198, 1846. Gallatin, after
Hale, in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, 15, 1848 (or Tsinuk).
= Tshinuk, Hale in U.S. Expl. Expd., VI, 562, 569, 1846 (contains
Watlala or Upper Chinook, including Watlala, Nihaloitih, or Echeloots;
and Tshinuk, including Tshinuk, Tlatsap, Wakaikam).
= Tsinuk, Gallatin, after Hale, in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1,
15, 1848. Berghaus (1851), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1852.
> Cheenook, Latham in Jour. Eth. Soc. Lond., I, 236, 1848. Latham,
Opuscula, 253, 1860.
> Chinuk, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 317, 1850 (same as Tshin['u]k;
includes Chin['u]ks proper, Klatsops, Kathlamut, Wak['a]ikam, Watlala,
Nihaloitih). Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 73, 1856 (mere
mention of family name). Latham, Opuscula, 340, 1860. Buschmann.
Spuren der aztek. Sprache, 616-619, 1859.
= Tschinuk, Berghaus (1851), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1852. Latham in
Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 73, 1856 (mere mention of family name).
Latham, Opuscula, 340, 1860. Latham, El. Comp. Phil., 402, 1862 (cites
a short vocabulary of Watlala).
= Tshinook, Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1853
(Chinooks, Clatsops, and Watlala). Tolmie and Dawson, Comp. Vocabs.
Brit. Col., 51, 61, 1884.
> Tshinuk, Buschmann, Spuren der aztek. Sprache, 616, 1859 (same as
his Chinuk).
= T'sin[-u]k, Dall, after Gibbs, in Cont. N.A. Eth., 1, 241, 1877
(mere mention of family).
= Chinook, Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 167, 1877 (names and gives
habitats of tribes). Gatschet in Beach, Ind. Misc., 442, 1877.
< Chinooks, Keane, App. to Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 474,
1878 (includes Skilloots, Watlalas, Lower Chinooks, Wakiakurns,
Cathlamets, Clatsops, Calapooyas, Clackamas, Killamooks, Yamkally,
Chimook Jargon; of these Calapooyas and Yamkally are Kalapooian,
Killamooks are Salishan).
> Chinook, Bancroft, Nat. Races, III, 565, 626-628, 1882 (enumerates
Chinook, Wakiakum, Cathlamet, Clatsop, Multnomah, Skilloot, Watlala).
X Nootka-Columbian, Scouler in Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc. Lond., XI, 224,
1841 (includes Cheenooks, and Cathlascons of present family).
X Southern, Scouler, ibid., 234 (same as his Nootka-Columbian family
above).
The vocabulary of the Chinook tribe, upon which the family name was
based, was derived from the mouth of the Columbia. As now understood the
family embraces a number of tribes, speaking allied languages, whose
former homes extended from the mouth of the river for some 200 miles, or
to The Dalles. According to Lewis and Clarke, our best authorities on
the pristine home of this family, most of their villages were on the
banks of the river, chiefly upon the northern bank, though they probably
claimed the land upon either bank for several miles back. Their villages
also extended on the Pacific coast north nearly to the northern extreme
of Shoalwater Bay, and to the south to about Tillamook Head, some 20
miles from the mouth of the Columbia.
PRINCIPAL TRIBES.
Lower Chinook:
Chinook.
Clatsop.
Upper Chinook:
Cathlamet.
Cathlapotle.
Chilluckquittequaw.
Clackama.
Cooniac.
Echeloot.
Multnoma.
Wahkiacum.
Wasco.
_Population._--There are two hundred and eighty-eight Wasco on the Warm
Springs Reservation, Oregon, and one hundred and fifty on the Yakama
Reservation, Washington. On the Grande Ronde Reservation, Oregon, there
are fifty-nine Clackama. From information derived from Indians by Mr.
Thomas Priestly, United States Indian Agent at Yakama, it is learned
that there still remain three or four families of "regular Chinook
Indians," probably belonging to one of the down-river tribes, about 6
miles above the mouth of the Columbia. Two of these speak the Chinook
proper, and three have an imperfect command of Clatsop. There are eight
or ten families, probably also of one of the lower river tribes, living
near Freeport, Washington.
Some of the Watlala, or Upper Chinook, live near the Cascades, about 55
miles below The Dalles. There thus remain probably between five and six
hundred of the Indians of this family.
CHITIMACHAN FAMILY.
= Chitimachas, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 114,
117, 1836. Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 407, 1847.
= Chetimachas, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 306,
1836. Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, xcix, 1848. Latham,
Nat. Hist. Man, 341, 1850. Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III,
402, 1853.
= Chetimacha, Latham in Proc. Philolog. Soc. Lond., II, 31-50, 1846.
Latham, Opuscula, 293, 1860.
= Chetemachas, Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, 77, 1848
(same as Chitimachas).
= Shetimasha, Gatschet, Creek Mig. Legend, I, 44, 1884. Gatschet in
Science, 414, April 29, 1887.
Derivation: From Choctaw words tch['u]ti, "cooking vessels," m['a]sha,
"they possess," (Gatschet).
This family was based upon the language of the tribe of the same name,
"formerly living in the vicinity of Lake Barataria, and still existing
(1836) in lower Louisiana."
Du Pratz asserted that the Taensa and Chitimacha were kindred tribes of
the Na'htchi. A vocabulary of the Shetimasha, however, revealed to
Gallatin no traces of such affinity. He considered both to represent
distinct families, a conclusion subsequent investigations have
sustained.
In 1881 Mr. Gatschet visited the remnants of this tribe in Louisiana. He
found about fifty individuals, a portion of whom lived on Grand River,
but the larger part in Charenton, St. Mary's Parish. The tribal
organization was abandoned in 1879 on the death of their chief.
CHUMASHAN FAMILY.
> Santa Barbara, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc., Lond., 85, 1856
(includes Santa Barbara, Santa Inez, San Luis Obispo languages).
Buschmann, Spuren der aztek. Sprache, 531, 535, 538, 602, 1859.
Latham, Opuscula, 351, 1860. Powell in Cont. N.A. Eth., III, 550, 567,
1877 (Kasu['a], Santa Inez, Id. of Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara). Gatschet
in U.S. Geog. Surv. W. 100th M., VII, 419, 1879 (cites La Purisima,
Santa Inez, Santa Barbara, Kasu['a], Mugu, Santa Cruz Id.).
X Santa Barbara, Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 156, 1877 (Santa Inez,
Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz Id., San Luis Obispo, San Antonio).
Derivation: From Chumash, the name of the Santa Rosa Islanders.
The several dialects of this family have long been known under the group
or family name, "Santa Barbara," which seems first to have been used in
a comprehensive sense by Latham in 1856, who included under it three
languages, viz: Santa Barbara, Santa Inez, and San Luis Obispo. The term
has no special pertinence as a family designation, except from the fact
that the Santa Barbara Mission, around which one of the dialects of the
family was spoken, is perhaps more widely known than any of the others.
Nevertheless, as it is the family name first applied to the group and
has, moreover, passed into current use its claim to recognition would
not be questioned were it not a compound name. Under the rule adopted
the latter fact necessitates its rejection. As a suitable substitute the
term Chumashan is here adopted. Chumash is the name of the Santa Rosa
Islanders, who spoke a dialect of this stock, and is a term widely known
among the Indians of this family.
The Indians of this family lived in villages, the villages as a whole
apparently having no political connection, and hence there appears to
have been no appellation in use among them to designate themselves as a
whole people.
Dialects of this language were spoken at the Missions of San
Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Inez, Purisima, and San Luis Obispo.
Kindred dialects were spoken also upon the Islands of Santa Rosa and
Santa Cruz, and also, probably, upon such other of the Santa Barbara
Islands as formerly were permanently inhabited.
These dialects collectively form a remarkably homogeneous family, all of
them, with the exception of the San Luis Obispo, being closely related
and containing very many words in common. Vocabularies representing six
dialects of the language are in possession of the Bureau of Ethnology.
The inland limits of this family can not be exactly defined, although a
list of more than one hundred villages with their sites, obtained by Mr.
Henshaw in 1884, shows that the tribes were essentially maritime and
were closely confined to the coast.
_Population._--In 1884 Mr. Henshaw visited the several counties formerly
inhabited by the populous tribes of this family and discovered that
about forty men, women, and children survived. The adults still speak
their old language when conversing with each other, though on other
occasions they use Spanish. The largest settlement is at San
Buenaventura, where perhaps 20 individuals live near the outskirts of
the town.
COAHUILTECAN FAMILY.
= Coahuilteco, Orozco y Berra, Geografia de las Lenguas de Mexico,
map, 1864.
= Tejano o Coahuilteco, Pimentel, Cuadro Descriptivo y Comparativo de
las Lenguas Indigenas de Mexico, II, 409, 1865. (A preliminary notice
with example from the language derived from Garcia's Manual, 1760.)
Derivation: From the name of the Mexican State Coahuila.
This family appears to have included numerous tribes in southwestern
Texas and in Mexico. They are chiefly known through the record of the
Rev. Father Bartolome Garcia (Manual para administrar, etc.), published
in 1760. In the preface to the "Manual" he enumerates the tribes and
sets forth some phonetic and grammatic differences between the dialects.
On page 63 of his Geografia de las Lenguas de Mexico, 1864, Orozco y
Berra gives a list of the languages of Mexico and includes Coahuilteco,
indicating it as the language of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas.
He does not, however, indicate its extension into Texas. It would thus
seem that he intended the name as a general designation for the language
of all the cognate tribes.
Upon his colored ethnographic map, also, Orozco y Berra designates the
Mexican portion of the area formerly occupied by the tribes of this
family Coahuilteco.[33] In his statement that the language and tribes
are extinct this author was mistaken, as a few Indians still survive who
speak one of the dialects of this family, and in 1886 Mr. Gatschet
collected vocabularies of two tribes, the Comecrudo and Cotoname, who
live on the Rio Grande, at Las Prietas, State of Tamaulipas. Of the
Comecrudo some twenty-five still remain, of whom seven speak the
language.
[Footnote 33: Geografia de las Lenguas de Mexico, map, 1864.]
The Cotoname are practically extinct, although Mr. Gatschet obtained one
hundred and twenty-five words from a man said to be of this blood.
Besides the above, Mr. Gatschet obtained information of the existence of
two women of the Pinto or Pakaw['a] tribe who live at La Volsa, near
Reynosa, Tamaulipas, on the Rio Grande, and who are said to speak their
own language.
PRINCIPAL TRIBES.
Alasapa. Pajalate.
Cachopostate. Pakaw['a].
Casa chiquita. Pamaque.
Chayopine. Pampopa.
Comecrudo. Pastancoya.
Cotoname. Patacale.
Mano de perro. Pausane.
Mescal. Payseya.
Miakan. Sanipao.
Orejone. T[^a]came.
Pacu[^a]che. Venado.
COPEHAN FAMILY.
> Cop-eh, Gibbs in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 421, 1853 (mentioned
as a dialect).
= Copeh, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc., Lond., 79, 1856 (of Upper
Sacramento; cites vocabs. from Gallatin and Schoolcraft). Latham,
Opuscula, 345, 1860. Latham, El. Comp. Phil., 412, 1862.
= Wintoons, Powers in Overland Monthly, 530, June, 1874 (Upper
Sacramento and Upper Trinity). Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 160, 1877
(defines habitat and names tribes). Gatschet in Beach, Ind.
Miscellany, 434, 1877.
= Win-t['u]n, Powell in Cont. N.A. Eth., III, 518-534, 1877
(vocabularies of Wintun, Sacramento River, Trinity Indians). Gatschet
in U.S. Geog. Surv. W. 100th M., VII, 418, 1879 (defines area occupied
by family).
X Klamath, Keane, App. to Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 475,
1878 (cited as including Copahs, Patawats, Wintoons). Bancroft, Nat.
Races, III, 565, 1882 (contains Copah).
> Napa, Keane, ibid., 476, 524, 1878 (includes Myacomas, Calayomanes,
Caymus, Ulucas, Suscols). Bancroft, Nat. Races, III, 567, 1882
(includes Napa, Myacoma, Calayomane, Caymus, Uluca, Suscol).
This name was proposed by Latham with evident hesitation. He says of it:
"How far this will eventually turn out to be a convenient name for the
group (or how far the group itself will be real), is uncertain." Under
it he places two vocabularies, one from the Upper Sacramento and the
other from Mag Redings in Shasta County. The head of Putos Creek is
given as headquarters for the language. Recent investigations have
served to fully confirm the validity of the family.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.
The territory of the Copehan family is bounded on the north by Mount
Shasta and the territory of the Sastean and Lutuamian families, on the
east by the territory of the Palaihnihan, Yanan, and Pujunan families,
and on the south by the bays of San Pablo and Suisun and the lower
waters of the Sacramento.
The eastern boundary of the territory begins about 5 miles east of Mount
Shasta, crosses Pit River a little east of Squaw Creek, and reaches to
within 10 miles of the eastern bank of the Sacramento at Redding. From
Redding to Chico Creek the boundary is about 10 miles east of the
Sacramento. From Chico downward the Pujunan family encroaches till at
the mouth of Feather River it occupies the eastern bank of the
Sacramento. The western boundary of the Copehan family begins at the
northernmost point of San Pablo Bay, trends to the northwest in a
somewhat irregular line till it reaches John's Peak, from which point it
follows the Coast Range to the tipper waters of Cottonwood Creek, whence
it deflects to the west, crossing the headwaters of the Trinity and
ending at the southern boundary of the Sastean family.
PRINCIPAL TRIBES.
A. Patwin: B. Wintu:
Chenposel. Daupom.
Gruilito. Nomlaki.
Korusi. Nommuk.
Liwaito. Norelmuk.
Lolsel. Normuk.
Makhelchel. Waikenmuk.
Malaka. Wailaki.
Napa.
Olelato.
Olposel.
Suisun.
Todetabi.
Topaidisel.
Waikosel.
Wailaksel.
COSTANOAN FAMILY.
= Costano, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 82, 1856 (includes
the Ahwastes, Olhones or Costanos, Romonans, Tulornos, Altatmos).
Latham, Opuscula, 348, 1860.
< Mutsun, Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 157, 1877 (includes Ahwastes,
Olhones, Altahmos, Romonans, Tulomos). Powell in Cont. N.A. Eth., III,
535, 1877 (includes under this family vocabs. of Costano, Mutsun,
Santa Clara, Santa Cruz).
Derivation: From the Spanish costano, "coast-men."
Under this group name Latham included five tribes, given above, which
were under the supervision of the Mission Dolores. He gives a few words
of the Romonan language, comparing it with Tshokoyem which he finds to
differ markedly. He finally expresses the opinion that, notwithstanding
the resemblance of a few words, notably personal pronouns, to Tshokoyem
of the Moquelumnan group, the affinities of the dialects of the Costano
are with the Salinas group, with which, however, he does not unite it
but prefers to keep it by itself. Later, in 1877, Mr. Gatschet,[34]
under the family name Mutsun, united the Costano dialects with the ones
classified by Latham under Moquelumnan. This arrangement was followed by
Powell in his classification of vocabularies.[35] More recent comparison
of all the published material by Mr. Curtin, of the Bureau, revealed
very decided and apparently radical differences between the two groups
of dialects. In 1888 Mr. H. W. Henshaw visited the coast to the north
and south of San Francisco, and obtained a considerable body of
linguistic material for further comparison. The result seems fully
to justify the separation of the two groups as distinct families.
[Footnote 34: Mag. Am. Hist., 1877, p. 157.]
[Footnote 35: Cont. N.A. Eth., 1877, vol. 3, p. 535.]
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.
The territory of the Costanoan family extends from the Golden Gate to a
point near the southern end of Monterey Bay. On the south it is bounded
from Monterey Bay to the mountains by the Esselenian territory. On the
east side of the mountains it extends to the southern end of Salinas
Valley. On the east it is bounded by a somewhat irregular line running
from the southern end of Salinas Valley to Gilroy Hot Springs and the
upper waters of Conestimba Creek, and, northward from the latter points
by the San Joaquin River to its mouth. The northern boundary is formed
by Suisun Bay, Carquinez Straits, San Pablo and San Francisco Bays, and
the Golden Gate.
_Population._--The surviving Indians of the once pop
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/17286