382 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



with the Eastern Algonquians, as they now do with the North- 

 western Athapascans. 



These two great families of Athapascans and Algonquians, 

 with their endless ramifications, jointly occupy, or 

 Athapascans, rather occupied in pre-Columbian times, consider- 

 ably more than half of the northern Continent. 

 The Athapascans, so named from the Athapascan waters in their 

 domain, but also collectively called Tinneh, " Men," occupy a 

 divided territory, compact in the north from the Eskimo fringe 

 in Alaska nearly to Port Nelson on Hudson Bay, and from this 

 point west to the Rocky Mountains along a curved line, mostly 

 conterminous with the Algonquians, rising midway to 60 N., and 

 dipping westwards nearly to 50 N. Then follow at intervals 

 along the west coast a few small enclaves, which seem to indicate 

 the track taken during their southern migrations to the North 

 Mexican borderlands, where they roamed till lately over another 

 wide tract comprising portions of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, 

 and the Rio Grande basin. 



So marked is the contrast between the northern groups, 

 mostly peaceful and even timid hunters or trappers long in the 

 service of the Hudson Bay Company, and the southern tribes- 

 fierce predatory Apache, Lipan, and Navajo hordes that their 

 kinship might have perhaps escaped detection but for their 

 common Athapascan speech. The northern, Pacific Coast, and 

 southern sections have a joint population of scarcely 33,000, 

 the southern being by far the most numerous (23,000), but now 

 mostly reduced and settled in various reservations, while the 

 northerners (Ah-tenas, Kuchins, Chippewyans, i.e. "Yellow 

 Knives," Dog Ribs, Hares, Slaves, Nahanies, etc.) still enjoy 

 the free life of hunters and traders under the protection of the 

 Dominion Government. 



Despite several centuries of a lawless existence as plundering 



steppe tribes, the Navajos have preserved careful 



Aplches S ar anc * apparently correct oral traditions of their first 



arrival in the San Juan valley before the end of the 



1 4th century, where they were probably cliff-dwellers. According 



to Mr F. W. Hodge the Apaches who are not the parent stem 



of the Navajos, as commonly supposed were at that time already 



