INDIAN LINGUISTIC FAMILIES OF AMERICA

NORTH OF MEXICO.

BY

J. W. POWELL.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATION

Plate I.
Map. Linguistic stocks of North America north of Mexico. In pocket at
end of volume

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.

8

(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,
9

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 Linnæus simply
because this great naturalist established the binominal system and
placed scientific classification upon a sound and enduring basis. As
Linnæus 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
10

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:

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
12

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.

The larger part of the volume consists of Gallatin’s paper. A short
chapter is devoted to general observations, including certain
13

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.

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.

The chapter cited is short, but long enough to enable the author to
construct a very curious classification of the tribes of which he
14

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, Kenáïes, 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.

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.

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.

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
15

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.

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 Archæologia Americana
are:

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.

16

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.

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.

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
17

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:

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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:

Several of the family names, viz, Keres, Kiowa, Yuma, and Zuñi, have
been adopted under the rules formulated above.

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° to 60°, 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
19

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.		Algonkin Group, A.
II.	Blackfeet.
III.	Shyennes.
IV.	Arapohos.	Arapoho Group, B.
V.	Atsinas.
VI.	Pawnees.	Pawnee Group, C.
VII.	Arikaras.
VIII.	Dakotas.		Dakota Group, D.
IX.	Assiniboins.
X.	Crows.
XI.	Minnitarees.
XII.	Mandans.
XIII.	Omahas.
XIV.	Iowas.

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
21

of languages, without, however, giving the boundaries of all the
languages mentioned in his lists.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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: Nūtka, Sahaptin, Tinneh, Selish, and
T’sinūk. The comparative vocabularies follow Part II.

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.

This appendix consists of a series of comparative vocabularies
collected by Powers, Gibbs and others, classified into linguistic
families, as follows:

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:

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.

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.

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
24

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.

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:

Under the several stocks is given a list of those who have collected
vocabularies of these languages and a reference to their
publication.

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.

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.

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.

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
25

of the stocks there considered, and, as the title indicates, treats also
of the Pueblo languages. The families mentioned are:

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:

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
26

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
27

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
28

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 Tañoan, 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
29

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
30

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
31

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
32

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
33

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

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,
34

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
35

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
36

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
37

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
38

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

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
39

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
40

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 him3 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.

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
41

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.

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.
42

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

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
43

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
44

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
45

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.

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
46

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.”

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
Adái 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 Adái who remembers
a word of the language.

Mr. Gatschet found that some of the older Caddo in the Indian
Territory remembered the Adái 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 Adái 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 Cabeça 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 Adái 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 Adái 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.

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.

48

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.

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:

ATHAPASCAN FAMILY.

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° 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.

53

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.

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
54

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 tûnnĕ, and other “Rogue River” or
“Tou-touten bands,” Chasta Costa, Galice Creek, Naltunne tûnnĕ 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 Hupâ 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

Southern group.—Includes
the Navajo, Apache, and Lipan.
Engineer José 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° N. to 36° N., and east and west from
99° W. to 114° 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

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.

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:

To the Pacific Group may be assigned the following:

Southern Group, consisting of Apache, Lipan, and Navajo:

ATTACAPAN FAMILY.

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.

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
58

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.

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 Archæologia 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° 30′.
60

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

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.

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’Isle25 gives twelve Panimaha villages on the
Missouri River north of the Pani villages on the Kansas River.

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.
Sibley27 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, loni, Nabadache, and Eyish
with those of Schermerhorn respecting the Kädo hadatco,28 of Le Page Du Pratz (1758)
concerning the Natchitoches, of Tonti29 and
La Harpe30 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.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

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:

CHIMAKUAN FAMILY.

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
63

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.

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:

CHIMARIKAN FAMILY.

According to Powers, this family was represented, so far as known, by
two tribes in California, one the Chi-mál-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.

CHIMMESYAN 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° 30′ and 55° 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

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
65

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.

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.
66

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.

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.

Derivation: From Choctaw words tchúti, “cooking vessels,” másha, “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
67

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.

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 Iñez, Purísima, 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.

68

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.

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 Bartolomé 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 Geografía de las Lenguas de México, 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.

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 Pakawá tribe who live at La Volsa, near
Reynosa, Tamaulipas, on the Rio Grande, and who are said to speak their
own language.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

COPEHAN FAMILY.

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
70

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.

COSTANOAN FAMILY.

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.

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 populous
tribes of this family are now scattered over several counties and
probably do not number, all told, over thirty individuals, as was
ascertained by Mr. Henshaw in 1888. Most of these are to be found near
the towns of Santa Cruz and Monterey. Only the older individuals speak
the language.

ESKIMAUAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From an Algonkin word eskimantik, “eaters of raw flesh.”

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The geographic boundaries of this family were set forth by Gallatin
in 1836 with considerable precision, and require comparatively little
revision and correction.

In the linear extent of country occupied, the Eskimauan is the most
remarkable of the North American linguistic families. It extends
coastwise from eastern Greenland to western Alaska and to the extremity
of the Aleutian Islands, a distance of considerably more than 5,000
miles. The winter or permanent villages are usually situated on the
coast and are frequently at considerable distances from one another, the
intervening areas being usually visited in summer for hunting and
fishing purposes. The interior is also visited by the Eskimo for the
purpose of hunting reindeer and other animals, though they rarely
penetrate farther than 50 miles. A narrow strip along the coast,
perhaps 30 miles wide, will probably, on the average, represent Eskimo
occupancy.

Except upon the Aleutian Islands, the dialects spoken over this vast
area are very similar, the unity of dialect thus observable being in
marked contrast to the tendency to change exhibited in other linguistic
families of North America.

How far north the east coast of Greenland is inhabited by Eskimo is
not at present known. In 1823 Capt. Clavering met with two families of
Eskimo north of 74° 30′. Recent explorations (1884-’85) by Capt. Holm,
of the Danish Navy, along the southeast coast reveal the presence of
Eskimo between 65° and 66° north latitude. These Eskimo profess entire
ignorance of any inhabitants north of themselves, which may be taken as
proof that if there are fiords farther up the coast which are inhabited
there has been no intercommunication in recent times at least between
these tribes and those to the south. It seems probable that more or less
isolated colonies of Eskimo do actually exist along the east coast of
Greenland far to the north.

Along the west coast of Greenland, Eskimo occupancy extends to about
74°. This division is separated by a considerable interval of
uninhabited coast from the Etah Eskimo who occupy the coast from Smith
Sound to Cape York, their most northerly village being in
73

78° 18′. For our knowledge of these interesting people we are chiefly
indebted to Ross and Bessels.

In Grinnell Land, Gen. Greely found indications of permanent Eskimo
habitations near Fort Conger, lat. 81° 44′.

On the coast of Labrador the Eskimo reach as far south as Hamilton
Inlet, about 55° 30′. Not long since they extended to the Straits of
Belle Isle, 50° 30′.

On the east coast of Hudson Bay the Eskimo reach at present nearly to
James Bay. According to Dobbs36 in 1744 they extended as far south as east Maine River,
or about 52°. The name Notaway (Eskimo) River at the southern end of the
bay indicates a former Eskimo extension to that point.

According to Boas and Bessels the most northern Eskimo of the middle
group north of Hudson Bay reside on the southern extremity of Ellesmere
Land around Jones Sound. Evidences of former occupation of Prince
Patrick, Melville, and other of the northern Arctic islands are not
lacking, but for some unknown cause, probably a failure of food supply,
the Eskimo have migrated thence and the islands are no longer inhabited.
In the western part of the central region the coast appears to be
uninhabited from the Coppermine River to Cape Bathurst. To the west of
the Mackenzie, Herschel Island marks the limit of permanent occupancy by
the Mackenzie Eskimo, there being no permanent villages between that
island and the settlements at Point Barrow.

The intervening strip of coast is, however, undoubtedly hunted over
more or less in summer. The Point Barrow Eskimo do not penetrate far
into the interior, but farther to the south the Eskimo reach to the
headwaters of the Nunatog and Koyuk Rivers. Only visiting the coast for
trading purposes, they occupy an anomalous position among Eskimo.

Eskimo occupancy of the rest of the Alaska coast is practically
continuous throughout its whole extent as far to the south and east as
the Atna or Copper River, where begin the domains of the Koluschan
family. Only in two places do the Indians of the Athapascan family
intrude upon Eskimo territory, about Cook’s Inlet, and at the mouth of
Copper River.

Owing to the labors of Dall, Petroff, Nelson, Turner, Murdoch, and
others we are now pretty well informed as to the distribution of the
Eskimo in Alaska.

Nothing is said by Gallatin of the Aleutian Islanders and they were
probably not considered by him to be Eskimauan. They are now known to
belong to this family, though the Aleutian dialects are unintelligible
to the Eskimo proper. Their distribution has been entirely changed since
the advent of the Russians and the introduction
74

of the fur trade, and at present they occupy only a very small portion
of the islands. Formerly they were much more numerous than at present
and extended throughout the chain.

The Eskimauan family is represented in northeast Asia by the Yuit of
the Chukchi peninsula, who are to be distinguished from the sedentary
Chukchi or the Tuski of authors, the latter being of Asiatic origin.
According to Dall the former are comparatively recent arrivals from the
American continent, and, like their brethren of America, are confined
exclusively to the coast.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES AND VILLAGES.

Population.—Only
a rough approximation of the population
of the Eskimo can be given, since of some of the divisions next to
75

nothing is known. Dall compiles the following estimates of the Alaskan
Eskimo from the most reliable figures up to 1885: Of the Northwestern
Innuit 3,100 (?), including the Kopagmiut, Kangmaligmiut, Nuwukmiut,
Nunatogmiut, Kuagmiut, the Inguhklimiut of Little Diomede Island 40 (?),
Shiwokugmiut of St. Lawrence Island 150 (?), the Western Innuit 14,500
(?), the Aleutian Islanders (Unungun) 2,200 (?); total of the Alaskan
Innuit, about 20,000.

The Central or Baffin Land Eskimo are estimated by Boas to number
about 1,100.37

From figures given by Rink, Packard, and others, the total number of
Labrador Eskimo is believed to be about 2,000.

According to Holm (1884-’85) there are about 550 Eskimo on the east
coast of Greenland. On the west coast the mission Eskimo numbered 10,122
in 1886, while the northern Greenland Eskimo, the Arctic Highlanders of
Ross, number about 200.

Thus throughout the Arctic regions generally there is a total of
about 34,000.

ESSELENIAN FAMILY.

As afterwards mentioned under the Salinan family, the present family
was included by Latham in the heterogeneous group called by him Salinas.
For reasons there given the term Salinan was restricted to the San
Antonio and San Miguel languages, leaving the present family without a
name. It is called Esselenian, from the name of the single tribe
Esselen, of which it is composed.

Its history is a curious and interesting one. Apparently the first
mention of the tribe and language is to be found in the Voyage de la
Pérouse, Paris, 1797, page 288, where Lamanon (1786) states that the
language of the Ecclemachs (Esselen) differs “absolutely from all those
of their neighbors.” He gives a vocabulary of twenty-two words and by
way of comparison a list of the ten numerals of the Achastlians
(Costanoan family). It was a study of the former short vocabulary,
published by Taylor in the California Farmer, October 24, 1862, that
first led to the supposition of the distinctness of this language.

A few years later the Esselen people came under the observation of
Galiano,38 who
mentions the Eslen and Runsien as two distinct nations, and notes a
variety of differences in usages and customs which are of no great
weight. It is of interest to note, however, that this author also
appears to have observed essential differences
76

in the languages of the two peoples, concerning which he says: “The same
difference as in usage and custom is observed in the languages of the
two nations, as will be perceived from the following comparison with
which we will conclude this chapter.”

Galiano supplies Esselen and Runsien vocabularies of thirty-one
words, most of which agree with the earlier vocabulary of Lamanon. These
were published by Taylor in the California Farmer under date of April
20, 1860.

In the fall of 1888 Mr. H. W. Henshaw visited the vicinity of
Monterey with the hope of discovering survivors of these Indians. Two
women were found in the Salinas Valley to the south who claimed to be of
Esselen blood, but neither of them was able to recall any of the
language, both having learned in early life to speak the Runsien
language in place of their own. An old woman was found in the Carmelo
Valley near Monterey and an old man living near the town of Cayucos,
who, though of Runsien birth, remembered considerable of the language of
their neighbors with whom they were connected by marriage. From them a
vocabulary of one hundred and ten words and sixty-eight phrases and
short sentences were obtained. These serve to establish the general
correctness of the short lists of words collected so long ago by Lamanon
and Galiano, and they also prove beyond reasonable doubt that the
Esselen language forms a family by itself and has no connection with any
other known.

The tribe or tribes composing this family occupied a narrow strip of
the California coast from Monterey Bay south to the vicinity of the
Santa Lucia Mountain, a distance of about 50 miles.

IROQUOIAN FAMILY.

Derivation: French, adaptation of the Iroquois word hiro, used to
conclude a speech, and koué, an exclamation (Charlevoix). Hale gives as
possible derivations ierokwa, the indeterminate form of the verb to
smoke, signifying “they who smoke;” also the Cayuga form of bear,
iakwai.39 Mr.
Hewitt40 suggests
the Algonkin words īrīn, true, or real; ako, snake; with the French
termination ois, the word becomes Irinakois.

With reference to this family it is of interest to note that as early
as 1798 Barton41
compared the Cheroki language with that of the Iroquois and stated his
belief that there was a connection between them. Gallatin, in the
Archæologia Americana, refers to the opinion expressed by Barton, and
although he states that he is inclined to agree with that author, yet he
does not formally refer Cheroki to that family, concluding that
“We have not a sufficient knowledge of the grammar, and generally of
the language of the Five Nations, or of the Wyandots, to decide that
question.”42

Mr. Hale was the first to give formal expression to his belief in the
affinity of the Cheroki to Iroquois.43 Recently extensive Cheroki vocabularies have come
into possession of the Bureau of Ethnology, and a careful comparison of
them with ample Iroquois material has been made by Mr. Hewitt. The
result is convincing proof of the relationship of the two languages as
affirmed by Barton so long ago.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

Unlike most linguistic stocks, the Iroquoian tribes did not occupy a
continuous area, but when first known to Europeans were settled in three
distinct regions, separated from each other by tribes of other lineage.
The northern group was surrounded by tribes of Algonquian stock, while
the more southern groups bordered upon the Catawba and Maskoki.

A tradition of the Iroquois points to the St. Lawrence region as the
early home of the Iroquoian tribes, whence they gradually moved down to
the southwest along the shores of the Great Lakes.

When Cartier, in 1534, first explored the bays and inlets of the Gulf
of St. Lawrence he met a Huron-Iroquoian people on the shores of the Bay
of Gaspé, who also visited the northern coast of the gulf. In the
following year when he sailed up the St. Lawrence River he
78

found the banks of the river from Quebec to Montreal occupied by an
Iroquoian people. From statements of Champlain and other early explorers
it seems probable that the Wyandot once occupied the country along the
northern shore of Lake Ontario.

The Conestoga, and perhaps some allied tribes, occupied the country
about the Lower Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and have
commonly been regarded as an isolated body, but it seems probable that
their territory was contiguous to that of the Five Nations on the north
before the Delaware began their westward movement.

As the Cherokee were the principal tribe on the borders of the
southern colonies and occupied the leading place in all the treaty
negotiations, they came to be considered as the owners of a large
territory to which they had no real claim. Their first sale, in 1721,
embraced a tract in South Carolina, between the Congaree and the South
Fork of the Edisto,44 but about one-half of this tract, forming the present
Lexington County, belonging to the Congaree.45 In 1755 they sold a second tract above
the first and extending across South Carolina from the Savannah to the
Catawba (or Wateree),46 but all of this tract east of Broad River belonged to
other tribes. The lower part, between the Congaree and the Wateree, had
been sold 20 years before, and in the upper part the Broad River was
acknowledged as the western Catawba boundary.47 In 1770 they sold a tract, principally
in Virginia and West Virginia, bounded east by the Great Kanawha,48 but the Iroquois
claimed by conquest all of this tract northwest of the main ridge of the
Alleghany and Cumberland Mountains, and extending at least to the
Kentucky River,49
and two years previously they had made a treaty with Sir William Johnson
by which they were recognized as the owners of all between Cumberland
Mountains and the Ohio down to the Tennessee.50 The Cumberland River basin was the only
part of this tract to which the Cherokee had any real title, having
driven out the former occupants, the Shawnee, about 1721.51 The Cherokee had no
villages north of the Tennessee (this probably includes the Holston as
its upper part), and at a conference at Albany the Cherokee delegates
presented to the Iroquois the skin of a deer, which they said belonged
to the Iroquois, as the animal had been killed north of the Tennessee.52 In 1805, 1806, and
1817 they sold several tracts, mainly in
79

middle Tennessee, north of the Tennessee River and extending to the
Cumberland River watershed, but this territory was claimed and had been
occupied by the Chickasaw, and at one conference the Cherokee admitted
their claim.53 The
adjacent tract in northern Alabama and Georgia, on the headwaters of the
Coosa, was not permanently occupied by the Cherokee until they began to
move westward, about 1770.

The whole region of West Virginia, Kentucky, and the Cumberland River
region of Tennessee was claimed by the Iroquois and Cherokee, but the
Iroquois never occupied any of it and the Cherokee could not be said to
occupy any beyond the Cumberland Mountains. The Cumberland River was
originally held by the Shawnee, and the rest was occupied, so far as it
was occupied at all, by the Shawnee, Delaware, and occasionally by the
Wyandot and Mingo (Iroquoian), who made regular excursions southward
across the Ohio every year to hunt and to make salt at the licks. Most
of the temporary camps or villages in Kentucky and West Virginia were
built by the Shawnee and Delaware. The Shawnee and Delaware were the
principal barrier to the settlement of Kentucky and West Virginia for a
period of 20 years, while in all that time neither the Cherokee nor the
Iroquois offered any resistance or checked the opposition of the Ohio
tribes.

The Cherokee bounds in Virginia should be extended along the mountain
region as far at least as the James River, as they claim to have lived
at the Peaks of Otter,54 and seem to be identical with the Rickohockan or
Rechahecrian of the early Virginia writers, who lived in the mountains
beyond the Monacan, and in 1656 ravaged the lowland country as far as
the site of Richmond and defeated the English and the Powhatan Indians
in a pitched battle at that place.55

The language of the Tuscarora, formerly of northeastern North
Carolina, connect them directly with the northern Iroquois. The Chowanoc
and Nottoway and other cognate tribes adjoining the Tuscarora may have
been offshoots from that tribe.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—The
present number of the Iroquoian stock is
about 43,000, of whom over 34,000 (including the Cherokees) are in the
United States while nearly 9,000 are in Canada. Below is given the
population of the different tribes, compiled chiefly from the
80

Canadian Indian Report for 1888, and the United States Census Bulletin
for 1890:

The Iroquois of St. Regis, Caughnawaga, Lake of Two Mountains (Oka),
and Gibson speak a dialect mainly Mohawk and Oneida, but are a mixture
of all the tribes of the original Five Nations.

KALAPOOIAN FAMILY.

Under this family name Scouler places two tribes, the Kalapooiah,
inhabiting “the fertile Willamat plains” and the Yamkallie, who live
“more in the interior, towards the sources of the
Willamat River.” Scouler adds that the Umpqua “appear to belong to this
Family, although their language is rather more remote from the
Kalapooiah than the Yamkallie is.” The Umpqua language is now placed
under the Athapascan family. Scouler also asserts the intimate
relationship of the Cathlascon tribes to the Kalapooiah family. They are
now classed as Chinookan.

The tribes of the Kalapooian family inhabited the valley of
Willamette River, Oregon, above the falls, and extended well up to the
82

headwaters of that stream. They appear not to have reached the Columbia
River, being cut off by tribes of the Chinookan family, and consequently
were not met by Lewis and Clarke, whose statements of their habitat were
derived solely from natives.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—So
far as known the surviving Indians of
this family are all at the Grande Ronde Agency, Oregon.

The following is a census for 1890:

KARANKAWAN FAMILY.

The Karankawa formerly dwelt upon the Texan coast, according to
Sibley, upon an island or peninsula in the Bay of St. Bernard (Matagorda
Bay). In 1804 this author, upon hearsay evidence, stated their number to
be 500 men.56 In
several places in the paper cited it is explicitly stated that the
Karankawa spoke the Attakapa language; the Attakapa was a coast tribe
living to the east of them. In 1884 Mr. Gatschet found a Tonkawe at Fort
Griffin, Texas, who claimed to have formerly lived among the Karankawa.
From him a vocabulary of twenty-five terms was obtained, which was all
of the language he remembered.

The vocabulary is unsatisfactory, not only because of its meagerness,
but because most of the terms are unimportant for comparison.
Nevertheless, such as it is, it represents all of the language that is
extant. Judged by this vocabulary the language seems to be distinct not
only from the Attakapa but from all others. Unsatisfactory as the
linguistic evidence is, it appears to be safer to class the language
provisionally as a distinct family upon the strength of it than to
accept Sibley’s statement of its identity with Attakapa, especially as
we know nothing of the extent of his information or whether indeed his
statement was based upon a personal knowledge of the language.

83

A careful search has been made with the hope of finding a few survivors
of this family, but thus far not a single descendant of the tribe has
been discovered and it is probable that not one is now living.

KERESAN FAMILY.

Derivation unknown. The name is pronounced with an explosive initial
sound, and Ad. F. Bandelier spells it Qq’uêres, Quéra, Quéris.

Under this name Turner, as above quoted, includes the vocabularies of
Kiwomi, Cochitemi, and Acoma.

The full list of pueblos of Keresan stock is given below. They are
situated in New Mexico on the upper Rio Grande, on several of its small
western affluents, and on the Jemez and San José, which also are
tributaries of the Rio Grande.

VILLAGES.

Population.—According
to the census of 1890 the total
population of the villages of the family is 3,560, distributed as
follows:

KIOWAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From the Kiowa word Kó-i, plural Kó-igu, meaning “Káyowe
man.” The Comanche term káyowe means “rat.”

The author who first formally separated this family appears to have
been Turner. Gallatin mentions the tribe and remarks that owing to the
loss of Dr. Say’s vocabularies “we only know that both the Kiowas and
Kaskaias languages were harsh, guttural, and extremely difficult.”60 Turner, upon the
strength of a vocabulary furnished by Lieut. Whipple, dissents from the
opinion expressed by Pike and others to the effect that the language is
of the same stock as the Comanche, and, while admitting that its
relationship to Camanche is greater than to any other family, thinks
that the likeness is merely the result of long intercommunication. His
opinion that it is entirely distinct from any other language has been
indorsed by Buschmann and other authorities. The family is represented
by the Kiowa tribe.

So intimately associated with the Comanches have the Kiowa been since
known to history that it is not easy to determine their pristine home.
By the Medicine Creek treaty of October 18, 1867, they and the Comanches
were assigned their present reservation in the Indian Territory, both
resigning all claims to other territory, especially their claims and
rights in and to the country north of the Cimarron River and west of the
eastern boundary of New Mexico.

The terms of the cession might be taken to indicate a joint ownership
of territory, but it is more likely that the Kiowa territory adjoined
the Comanche on the northwest. In fact Pope61 definitely locates the Kiowa in the
valley of the Upper Arkansas, and of its tributary, the Purgatory (Las
Animas) River. This is in substantial accord with the statements of
other writers of about the same period. Schermerhorn (1812) places the
Kiowa on the heads of the Arkansas and Platte. Earlier still they appear
upon the headwaters of the Platte, which is the region assigned them
upon the map.62
This region was occupied later by the Cheyenne and Arapaho of Algonquian
stock.

Population.—According
to the United States census for
1890 there are 1,140 Kiowa on the Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita
Reservation, Indian Territory.

KITUNAHAN FAMILY.

This family was based upon a tribe variously termed Kitunaha,
Kutenay, Cootenai, or Flatbow, living on the Kootenay River, a branch of
the Columbia in Oregon.

Mr. Gatschet thinks it is probable that there are two dialects of the
language spoken respectively in the extreme northern and southern
portions of the territory occupied, but the vocabularies at hand are not
sufficient to definitely settle the question.

The area occupied by the Kitunahan tribes is inclosed between the
northern fork of the Columbia River, extending on the south along the
Cootenay River. By far the greater part of the territory occupied by
these tribes is in British Columbia.

TRIBES.

The principal divisions or tribes are Cootenai, or Upper Cootenai;
Akoklako, or Lower Cootenai; Klanoh-Klatklam, or Flathead Cootenai;
Yaketahnoklatakmakanay, or Tobacco Plains Cootenai.

Population.—There
are about 425 Cootenai at Flathead
Agency, Montana, and 539 at Kootenay Agency, British Columbia; total,
964.

KOLUSCHAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From the Aleut word kolosh, or more properly, kaluga,
meaning “dish,” the allusion being to the dish-shaped lip ornaments.

This family was based by Gallatin upon the Koluschen tribe (the
Tshinkitani of Marchand), “who inhabit the islands and the adjacent
coast from the sixtieth to the fifty-fifth degree of north
latitude.”

In the Koluschan family, Gallatin observes that the remote analogies
to the Mexican tongue to be found in several of the northern tribes, as
the Kinai, are more marked than in any other.

The boundaries of this family as given by Gallatin are substantially
in accordance with our present knowledge of the subject. The southern
boundary is somewhat indeterminate owing to the fact, ascertained by the
census agents in 1880, that the Haida tribes extend somewhat farther
north than was formerly supposed and occupy the southeast half of Prince
of Wales Island. About latitude 56°, or the mouth of Portland Canal,
indicates the southern limit of the family, and 60°, or near the mouth
of Atna River, the northern limit. Until recently they have been
supposed to be exclusively
87

an insular and coast people, but Mr. Dawson has made the interesting
discovery63 that
the Tagish, a tribe living inland on the headwaters of the Lewis River,
who have hitherto been supposed to be of Athapascan extraction, belong
to the Koluschan family. This tribe, therefore, has crossed the coast
range of mountains, which for the most part limits the extension of this
people inland and confines them to a narrow coast strip, and have gained
a permanent foothold in the interior, where they share the habits of the
neighboring Athapascan tribes.

TRIBES.

Population.—The
following figures are from the census of
1880.64 The total
population of the tribes of this family, exclusive of the Tagish, is
6,437, distributed as follows:

KULANAPAN FAMILY.

The name applied to this family was first employed by Gibbs in 1853,
as above cited. He states that it is the “name of one of the
88

Clear Lake bands,” adding that “the language is spoken by all the tribes
occupying the large valley.” The distinctness of the language is now
generally admitted.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The main territory of the Kulanapan family is bounded on the west by
the Pacific Ocean, on the east by the Yukian and Copehan territories, on
the north by the watershed of the Russian River, and on the south by a
line drawn from Bodega Head to the southwest corner of the Yukian
territory, near Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California. Several tribes of
this family, viz, the Kastel Pomo, Kai Pomo, and Kato Pomo, are located
in the valley between the South Fork of Eel River and the main river,
and on the headwaters of the South Fork, extending thence in a narrow
strip to the ocean. In this situation they were entirely cut off from
the main body by the intrusive Yuki tribes, and pressed upon from the
north by the warlike Wailakki, who are said to have imposed their
language and many of their customs upon them and as well doubtless to
have extensively intermarried with them.

TRIBES.

KUSAN FAMILY.

Derivation: Milhau, in a manuscript letter to Gibbs (Bureau of
Ethnology), states that “Coos in the Rogue River dialect is said to mean
lake, lagoon or inland bay.”

The “Kaus or Kwokwoos” tribe is merely mentioned by Hale as living on
a river of the same name between the Umqua and the Clamet.65 Lewis and Clarke66 also mention them in the
same location as the Cookkoo-oose. The tribe was referred to also under
the name Kaus by Latham,67 who did not attempt its classification, having in fact
no material for the purpose.

Mr. Gatschet, as above, distinguishes the language as forming a
distinct stock. It is spoken on the coast of middle Oregon, on Coos
River and Bay, and at the mouth of Coquille River, Oregon.

TRIBES.

Population.—Most
of the survivors of this family are
gathered upon the Siletz Reservation, Oregon, but their number can not
be stated as the agency returns are not given by tribes.

LUTUAMIAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From a Pit River word meaning “lake.”

The tribes of this family appear from time immemorial to have
occupied Little and Upper Klamath Lakes, Klamath Marsh, and Sprague
River, Oregon. Some of the Modoc have been removed to the Indian
Territory, where 84 now reside; others are in Sprague River Valley.

The language is a homogeneous one and, according to Mr. Gatschet who
has made a special study of it, has no real dialects, the two divisions
of the family, Klamath and Modoc, speaking an almost identical
language.

The Klamaths’ own name is É-ukshikni, “Klamath Lake people.” The
Modoc are termed by the Klamath Módokni, “Southern people.”

TRIBES.

Population.—There
were 769 Klamath and Modoc on the
Klamath
Reservation in 1889. Since then they have slightly decreased.

MARIPOSAN FAMILY.

Derivation: A Spanish word meaning “butterfly,” applied to a county in
California and subsequently taken for the family name.

Latham mentions the remnants of three distinct bands of the Coconoon,
each with its own language, in the north of Mariposa County. These are
classed together under the above name. More recently the tribes speaking
languages allied to the Coconūn have been treated of under the family
name Yokut. As, however, the stock was established by Latham on a sound
basis, his name is here restored.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The territory of the Mariposan family is quite irregular in outline.
On the north it is bounded by the Fresno River up to the point of its
junction with the San Joaquin; thence by a line running to the northeast
corner of the Salinan territory in San Benito County, California; on the
west by a line running from San Benito to Mount Pinos. From the middle
of the western shore of Tulare Lake to the ridge at Mount Pinos on the
south, the Mariposan area is merely a narrow strip in and along the
foothills. Occupying one-half of the western and all the southern shore
of Tulare Lake, and bounded on the north by a line running from the
southeast corner of Tulare Lake due east to the first great spur of the
Sierra Nevada range is the territory of the intrusive Shoshoni. On the
east the secondary range of the Sierra Nevada forms the Mariposan
boundary.

In addition to the above a small strip of territory on the eastern
bank of the San Joaquin is occupied by the Cholovone division of the
Mariposan family, between the Tuolumne and the point where the San
Joaquin turns to the west before entering Suisun Bay.

TRIBES.

Population.—There
are 145 of the Indians of this family
now attached to the Mission Agency, California.

MOQUELUMNAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From the river and hill of same name in Calaveras County,
California; according to Powers the Meewoc name for the river is
Wakalumitoh.

The Talatui mentioned by Hale68 as on the Kassima (Cosumnes) River belong to the above
family. Though this author clearly distinguished the language from any
others with which he was acquainted, he nowhere expressed the opinion
that it is entitled to family rank or gave it a family name. Talatui is
mentioned as a tribe from which he obtained an incomplete
vocabulary.

It was not until 1856 that the distinctness of the linguistic family
was fully set forth by Latham. Under the head of Moquelumne, this author
gathers several vocabularies representing different languages and
dialects of the same stock. These are the Talatui of Hale, the Tuolumne
from Schoolcraft, the Sonoma dialects as represented by the Tshokoyem
vocabulary, the Chocuyem and Youkiousme paternosters, and the Olamentke
of Kostromitonov in Bäer’s Beiträge. He also places here provisionally
the paternosters from the Mission de Santa Clara and the Vallee de los
Tulares of Mofras; also the language Guiloco de la Mission de San
Francisco. The Costano containing the five tribes of the Mission of
Dolores, viz., the Ahwastes, Olhones or Costanos of the coast, Romonans,
Tulomos and the Altahmos seemed to Latham to differ from the Moquelumnan
language. Concerning them he states “upon the whole, however, the
affinities seem to run in the direction of the languages of the next
93

group, especially in that of the Ruslen.” He adds: “Nevertheless,
for the present I place the Costano by itself, as a transitional form of
speech to the languages spoken north, east, and south of the Bay of San
Francisco.” Recent investigation by Messrs. Curtin and Henshaw have
confirmed the soundness of Latham’s views and, as stated under head of
the Costanoan family, the two groups of languages are considered to be
distinct.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The Moquelumnan family occupies the territory bounded on the north by
the Cosumne River, on the south by the Fresno River, on the east by the
Sierra Nevada, and on the west by the San Joaquin River, with the
exception of a strip on the east bank occupied by the Cholovone. A part
of this family occupies also a territory bounded on the south by San
Francisco Bay and the western half of San Pablo Bay; on the west by the
Pacific Ocean from the Golden Gate to Bodega Head; on the north by a
line running from Bodega Head to the Yukian territory northeast of Santa
Rosa, and on the east by a line running from the Yukian territory to the
northernmost point of San Pablo Bay.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—Comparatively
few of the Indians of this
family survive, and these are mostly scattered in the mountains and away
from the routes of travel. As they were never gathered on reservations,
an accurate census has not been taken.

In the detached area north of San Francisco Bay, chiefly in Marin
County, formerly inhabited by the Indians of this family, almost none
remain. There are said to be none living about the mission of San
Rafael, and Mr. Henshaw, in 1888, succeeded in locating only six at
Tomales Bay, where, however, he obtained a very good vocabulary from a
woman.

MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From the name of the principal tribe of the Creek
Confederacy.

In the Muskhogee family Gallatin includes the Muskhogees proper, who
lived on the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers; the Hitchittees, living on the
Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers; and the Seminoles of the peninsula of
Florida. It was his opinion, formed by a comparison of vocabularies,
that the Choctaws and Chickasaws should also be classed under this
family. In fact, he called69 the family Choctaw Muskhogee. In deference, however, to
established usage, the two tribes were kept separate in his table and
upon the colored map. In 1848 he appears to be fully convinced of the
soundness of the view doubtfully expressed in 1836, and calls the family
the Chocta-Muskhog.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The area occupied by this family was very extensive. It may be
described in a general way as extending from the Savannah River and the
Atlantic west to the Mississippi, and from the Gulf of Mexico north to
the Tennessee River. All of this territory was held by Muskhogean tribes
except the small areas occupied by the Yuchi, Ná’htchi, and some small
settlements of Shawni.

95

Upon the northeast Muskhogean limits are indeterminate. The Creek
claimed only to the Savannah River; but upon its lower course the Yamasi
are believed to have extended east of that river in the sixteenth to the
eighteenth century.70 The territorial line between the Muskhogean family and
the Catawba tribe in South Carolina can only be conjectured.

It seems probable that the whole peninsula of Florida was at one time
held by tribes of Timuquanan connection; but from 1702 to 1708, when the
Apalachi were driven out, the tribes of northern Florida also were
forced away by the English. After that time the Seminole and the Yamasi
were the only Indians that held possession of the Floridian
peninsula.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—There
is an Alibamu town on Deep Creek,
Indian Territory, an affluent of the Canadian, Indian Territory. Most of
the inhabitants are of this tribe. There are Alibamu about 20 miles
south of Alexandria, Louisiana, and over one hundred in Polk County,
Texas.

So far as known only three women of the Apalachi survived in 1886,
and they lived at the Alibamu town above referred to. The United States
Census bulletin for 1890 gives the total number of pureblood Choctaw at
9,996, these being principally at Union Agency, Indian Territory. Of the
Chicasa there are 3,464 at the same agency; Creek 9,291; Seminole 2,539;
of the latter there are still about 200 left in southern Florida.

There are four families of Koasáti, about twenty-five individuals,
near the town of Shepherd, San Jacinto County, Texas. Of the Yamasi none
are known to survive.

NATCHESAN FAMILY.

The Na’htchi, according to Gallatin, a residue of the well-known
nation of that name, came from the banks of the Mississippi, and joined
the Creek less than one hundred years ago.71 The seashore from Mobile to the
Mississippi was then inhabited by several small tribes, of which the
Na’htchi was the principal.

Before 1730 the tribe lived in the vicinity of Natchez, Miss., along
St. Catherine Creek. After their dispersion by the French in 1730 most
of the remainder joined the Chicasa and afterwards the Upper Creek. They
are now in Creek and Cherokee Nations, Indian Territory.

The linguistic relations of the language spoken by the Taensa tribe
have long been in doubt, and it is probable that they will ever remain
so. As no vocabulary or text of this language was known to be in
existence, the “Grammaire et vocabulaire de la langue Taensa, avec
textes traduits et commentés par J.-D. Haumonté, Parisot, L. Adam,”
published in Paris in 1882, was received by American linguistic students
with peculiar interest. Upon the strength of the linguistic material
embodied in the above Mr. Gatschet (loc. cit.) was led to affirm the
complete linguistic isolation of the language.

Grave doubts of the authenticity of the grammar and vocabulary have,
however, more recently been brought forward.72 The text contains internal evidences of
the fraudulent character, if not of the whole, at least of a large part
of the material. So palpable and gross are these that until the
character of the whole can better be understood by the inspection of the
original manuscript, alleged to be in Spanish, by a competent expert it
will be far safer to reject both the vocabulary and grammar. By so doing
we are left without any linguistic evidence whatever of the relations of
the Taensa language.

D’Iberville, it is true, supplies us with the names of seven Taensa
towns which were given by a Taensa Indian who accompanied him; but most
of these, according to Mr. Gatschet, were given, in the Chicasa trade
jargon or, as termed by the French, the “Mobilian trade jargon,” which
is at least a very natural supposition. Under these circumstances we
can, perhaps, do no better than rely upon the statements of several of
the old writers who appear to be unanimous in regarding the language of
the Taensa as of Na’htchi connection. Du Pratz’s statement to that
effect is weakened from the fact that the statement also includes the
Shetimasha, the language of which is known from a vocabulary to be
totally distinct not only from the Na’htchi but from any other. To
supplement Du Pratz’s testimony, such as it is, we have the statements
of M. de Montigny, the
97

missionary who affirmed the affinity of the Taensa language to that of
the Na’htchi, before he had visited the latter in 1699, and of Father
Gravier, who also visited them. For the present, therefore, the Taensa
language is considered to be a branch of the Na’htchi.

The Taensa formerly dwelt upon the Mississippi, above and close to
the Na’htchi. Early in the history of the French settlements a portion
of the Taensa, pressed upon by the Chicasa, fled and were settled by the
French upon Mobile Bay.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—There
still are four Na’htchi among the
Creek in Indian Territory and a number in the Cheroki Hills near the
Missouri border.

PALAIHNIHAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From the Klamath word p’laikni, signifying
“mountaineers” or “uplanders” (Gatschet).

In two places73
Hale uses the terms Palaihnih and Palaiks interchangeably, but inasmuch
as on page 569, in his formal table of linguistic families and
languages, he calls the family Palaihnih, this is given preference over
the shorter form of the name.

Though here classed as a distinct family, the status of the Pit River
dialects can not be considered to be finally settled. Powers speaks of
the language as “hopelessly consonantal, harsh, and sesquipedalian,”
* * * “utterly unlike the sweet and simple
98

languages of the Sacramento.” He adds that the personal pronouns show it
to be a true Digger Indian tongue. Recent investigations by Mr. Gatschet
lead him, however, to believe that ultimately it will be found to be
linguistically related to the Sastean languages.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The family was located by Hale to the southeast of the Lutuami
(Klamath). They chiefly occupied the area drained by the Pit River in
extreme northeastern California. Some of the tribe were removed to Round
Valley Reservation, California.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Powers, who has made a special study of the tribe, recognizes the
following principal tribal divisions:74

PIMAN FAMILY.

Latham used the term Pima in 1850, citing under it three dialects or
languages. Subsequently, in 1856, he used the same term for one of the
five divisions into which he separates the languages of Sonora and
Sinaloa.

The same year Turner gave a brief account of Pima as a distinct
language, his remarks applying mainly to Pima proper of the Gila River,
Arizona. This tribe had been visited by Emory and Johnston and also
described by Bartlett. Turner refers to a short vocabulary in the
Mithridates, another of Dr. Coulter’s in Royal Geological Society
Journal, vol. XI, 1841, and a third by
Parry in Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, vol. III, 1853. The short vocabulary he himself published
was collected by Lieut. Whipple.

Only a small portion of the territory occupied by this family is
included within the United States, the greater portion being in Mexico
where it extends to the Gulf of California. The family is represented in
the United States by three tribes, Pima alta, Sobaipuri, and Papago. The
former have lived for at least two centuries with the
99

Maricopa on the Gila River about 160 miles from the mouth. The Sobaipuri
occupied the Santa Cruz and San Pedro Rivers, tributaries of the Gila,
but are no longer known. The Papago territory is much more extensive and
extends to the south across the border. In recent times the two tribes
have been separated, but the Pima territory as shown upon the map was
formerly continuous to the Gila River.

According to Buschmann, Gatschet, Brinton, and others the Pima
language is a northern branch of the Nahuatl, but this relationship has
yet to be demonstrated.75

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—Of
the above tribes the Pima and Papago only
are within our boundaries. Their numbers under the Pima Agency,
Arizona,76 are
Pima, 4,464; Papago, 5,163.

PUJUNAN FAMILY.

The following tribes were placed in this group by Latham: Pujuni,
Secumne, Tsamak of Hale, and the Cushna of Schoolcraft. The name adopted
for the family is the name of a tribe given by Hale.77 This was one of the two races
into which, upon the information of Captain Sutter as derived by Mr.
Dana, all the Sacramento tribes
100

were believed to be divided. “These races resembled one another in every
respect but language.”

Hale gives short vocabularies of the Pujuni, Sekumne, and Tsamak.
Hale did not apparently consider the evidence as a sufficient basis for
a family, but apparently preferred to leave its status to be settled
later.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The tribes of this family have been carefully studied by Powers, to
whom we are indebted for most all we know of their distribution. They
occupied the eastern bank of the Sacramento in California, beginning
some 80 or 100 miles from its mouth, and extended northward to within a
short distance of Pit River, where they met the tribes of the
Palaihnihan family. Upon the east they reached nearly to the border of
the State, the Palaihnihan, Shoshonean, and Washoan families hemming
them in in this direction.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

QUORATEAN FAMILY.

Derivation: Name of a band at mouth of Salmon River, California.
Etymology unknown.

This family name is equivalent to the Cahroc or Karok of Powers and
later authorities.

In 1853, as above cited, Gibbs gives Eh-nek as the titular heading of
his paragraphs upon the language of this family, with the remark
101

that it is “The name of a band at the mouth of the Salmon, or Quoratem
river.” He adds that “This latter name may perhaps be considered as
proper to give to the family, should it be held one.” He defines the
territory occupied by the family as follows: “The language reaches from
Bluff creek, the upper boundary of the Pohlik, to about Clear creek,
thirty or forty miles above the Salmon; varying, however, somewhat from
point to point.”

The presentation of the name Quoratem, as above, seems sufficiently
formal, and it is therefore accepted for the group first indicated by
Gibbs.

In 1856 Latham renamed the family Ehnik, after the principal band,
locating the tribe, or rather the language, south of the Shasti and
Lutuami areas.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The geographic limits of the family are somewhat indeterminate,
though the main area occupied by the tribes is well known. The tribes
occupy both banks of the lower Klamath from a range of hills a little
above Happy Camp to the junction of the Trinity, and the Salmon River
from its mouth to its sources. On the north, Quoratean tribes extended
to the Athapascan territory near the Oregon line.

TRIBES.

Population.—According
to a careful estimate made by Mr. Curtin in the region in 1889, the
Indians of this family number about 600.

SALINAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From river of same name.

The language formerly spoken at the Missions of San Antonio and San
Miguel in Monterey County, California, have long occupied a doubtful
position. By some they have been considered distinct, not only from each
other, but from all other languages. Others have held that they
represent distinct dialects of the Chumashan (Santa Barbara) group of
languages. Vocabularies collected in 1884 by Mr. Henshaw show clearly
that the two are closely connected dialects and that they are in no wise
related to any other family.

102

The group established by Latham under the name Salinas is a
heterogeneous one, containing representatives of no fewer than four
distinct families. Gioloco, which he states “may possibly belong to this
group, notwithstanding its reference to the Mission of San Francisco,”
really is congeneric with the vocabularies assigned by Latham to the
Mendocinan family. The “Soledad of Mofras” belongs to the Costanoan
family mentioned on page 348 of the same essay, as also do the Ruslen
and Carmel. Of the three remaining forms of speech, Eslen, San Antonio,
and San Miguel, the two latter are related dialects, and belong within
the drainage of the Salinas River. The term Salinan is hence applied to
them, leaving the Eslen language to be provided with a name.

Population.—Though
the San Antonio and San Miguel were
probably never very populous tribes, the Missions of San Antonio and San
Miguel, when first established in the years 1771 and 1779, contained
respectively 1,400 and 1,300 Indians. Doubtless the larger number of
these converts were gathered in the near vicinity of the two missions
and so belonged to this family. In 1884 when Mr. Henshaw visited the
missions he was able to learn of the existence of only about a dozen
Indians of this family, and not all of these could speak their own
language.

SALISHAN FAMILY.

The extent of the Salish or Flathead family was unknown to Gallatin,
as indeed appears to have been the exact locality of the tribe of which
he gives an anonymous vocabulary from the Duponceau collection. The
tribe is stated to have resided upon one of the branches of the Columbia
River, “which must be either the most southern branch of Clarke’s River
or the most northern branch of Lewis’s River.” The former supposition
was correct. As employed by Gallatin the family embraced only a single
tribe, the Flathead tribe proper. The Atnah, a Salishan tribe, were
considered by Gallatin to be distinct, and the name would be eligible as
the family
104

name; preference, however, is given to Salish. The few words from the
Friendly Village near the sources of the Salmon River given by Gallatin
in Archæologia Americana, II, 1836,
pp. 15, 306, belong under this family.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

Since Gallatin’s time, through the labors of Riggs, Hale, Tolmie,
Dawson, Boas, and others, our knowledge of the territorial limits of
this linguistic family has been greatly extended. The most southern
outpost of the family, the Tillamook and Nestucca, were established on
the coast of Oregon, about 50 miles to the south of the Columbia, where
they were quite separated from their kindred to the north by the
Chinookan tribes. Beginning on the north side of Shoalwater Bay,
Salishan tribes held the entire northwestern part of Washington,
including the whole of the Puget Sound region, except only the Macaw
territory about Cape Flattery, and two insignificant spots, one near
Port Townsend, the other on the Pacific coast to the south of Cape
Flattery, which were occupied by Chimakuan tribes. Eastern Vancouver
Island to about midway of its length was also held by Salishan tribes,
while the great bulk of their territory lay on the mainland opposite and
included much of the upper Columbia. On the south they were hemmed in
mainly by the Shahaptian tribes. Upon the east Salishan tribes dwelt to
a little beyond the Arrow Lakes and their feeder, one of the extreme
north forks of the Columbia. Upon the southeast Salishan tribes extended
into Montana, including the upper drainage of the Columbia. They were
met here in 1804 by Lewis and Clarke. On the northeast Salish territory
extended to about the fifty-third parallel. In the northwest it did not
reach the Chilcat River.

Within the territory thus indicated there is considerable diversity
of customs and a greater diversity of language. The language is split
into a great number of dialects, many of which are doubtless mutually
unintelligible.

The relationship of this family to the Wakashan is a very interesting
problem. Evidences of radical affinity have been discovered by Boas and
Gatschet, and the careful study of their nature and extent now being
prosecuted by the former may result in the union of the two, though
until recently they have been considered quite distinct.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—The
total Salish population of British
Columbia is 12,325, inclusive of the Bellacoola, who number, with the
Hailtzuk, 2,500, and those in the list of unclassified, who number
8,522, distributed as follows:

Under the Fraser River Agency, 4,986; Kamloops Agency, 2,579;
Cowichan Agency, 1,852; Okanagan Agency, 942; Williams Lake Agency,
1,918; Kootenay Agency, 48.

Most of the Salish in the United States are on reservations. They
number about 5,500, including a dozen small tribes upon the Yakama
Reservation, which have been consolidated with the Clickatat
(Shahaptian) through intermarriage. The Salish of the United States are
distributed as follows (Indian Affairs Report, 1889, and U.S. Census
Bulletin, 1890):

Colville Agency, Washington, Coeur d’ Alene, 422; Lower Spokane, 417;
Lake, 303; Colville, 247; Okinagan, 374; Kespilem, 67; San Pueblo (Sans
Puell), 300; Calispel, 200; Upper Spokane, 170.

Puyallup Agency, Washington, Quaitso, 82; Quinaielt (Queniut), 101;
Humptulip, 19; Puyallup, 563; Chehalis, 135; Nisqually, 94; Squaxon, 60;
Clallam, 351; Skokomish, 191; Oyhut, Hoquiam, Montesano, and Satsup,
29.

Tulalip Agency, Washington, Snohomish, 443; Madison, 144;
Muckleshoot, 103; Swinomish, 227; Lummi, 295.

Grande Ronde Agency, Oregon, Tillamook, 5.

SASTEAN FAMILY.

Derivation: The single tribe upon the language of which Hale based his
name was located by him to the southwest of the Lutuami or Klamath
tribes. He calls the tribe indifferently Shasties or Shasty, but the
form applied by him to the family (see pp. 218, 569) is Saste, which
accordingly is the one taken.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The former territory of the Sastean family is the region drained by
the Klamath River and its tributaries from the western base of the
Cascade range to the point where the Klamath flows through the ridge of
hills east of Happy Camp, which forms the boundary between the Sastean
and the Quoratean families. In addition to this region of the Klamath,
the Shasta extended over the Siskiyou range northward as far as Ashland,
Oregon.

SHAHAPTIAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From a Selish word of unknown significance.

The Shahaptan family of Scouler comprised three tribes—the
Shahaptan or Nez Percés, the Kliketat, a scion of the Shahaptan,
dwelling near Mount Ranier, and the Okanagan, inhabiting the upper part
of Fraser River and its tributaries; “these tribes were asserted to
speak dialects of the same language.” Of the above tribes the Okinagan
are now known to be Salishan.

The vocabularies given by Scouler were collected by Tolmie. The term
“Sahaptin” appears on Gallatin’s map of 1836, where it doubtless refers
only to the Nez Percé tribe proper, with respect to whose linguistic
affinities Gallatin apparently knew nothing at the time. At all events
the name occurs nowhere in his discussion of the linguistic
families.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The tribes of this family occupied a large section of country along
the Columbia and its tributaries. Their western boundary was the Cascade
Mountains; their westernmost bands, the Klikitat on the north, the Tyigh
and Warm Springs on the south, enveloping for a short distance the
Chinook territory along the Columbia which extended to the Dalles.
Shahaptian tribes extended along the tributaries of the Columbia for a
considerable distance, their northern boundary being indicated by about
the forty-sixth parallel, their southern by about the forty-fourth.
Their eastern extension was interrupted by the Bitter Root
Mountains.