X.] THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 383 



settled in the north-western and south-western parts of New 

 Mexico. Before the i8th century the Navajos had been joined 

 by various fragments of Athapascans, Tanoas, Tauras, Keresas, 

 Zuni, Shoshons, Yumas and others, and by the acquisition of 

 domestic animals soon after the first Spanish expedition (1542) 

 their social state underwent a complete change. Before the 

 1 7th century none of these marauders were strong enough to 

 molest the Pueblo communities, which afterwards suffered so 

 much from their depredations 1 . 



But these faint reminiscences of the past are the mere echoes 

 of history compared with those of the eastern families Algon- 

 quians, Iroquoians, Muskhogeans all of whom have been in the 

 closest contact with the European settlers for about 300 years, 

 while some had probably come under Norse influences as early 

 as the nth century. Originally the Algonquian domain was 

 even more extensive than the Athapascan, forming a vast but 

 irregular triangular space, whose northern base, indented by 

 Hudson Bay, stretched from Labrador to the Rockies, so that 

 they were almost everywhere conterminous on the north with the 

 Athapascans, and round the Labrador seaboard with the Eskimos. 

 Southwards the two sides were roughly enclosed by the Mississippi 

 valley and the Atlantic shore line, reaching on the one hand as 

 far as central Tennessee, on the other to and perhaps a little 

 beyond Pamlico Sound, North Carolina 2 . Between these two 

 points, that is, towards its apex, the triangle was truncated, and 

 the Algonquian territory arrested and even encroached upon by 

 the Muskhogean domain in the west, by a detached southern 

 section of the Iroquoians in the centre, and by Siouan and other 

 Iroquoian enclaves towards the Atlantic. 



In the Laurentian basin the northern and chief section of the 



1 77/6' Early Navajo and Apache in Ainer. Anthropologist, 1895, p. 233 sq. 

 It should be stated, however, that Mr Hodge's views are questioned by Capt. 

 J. Bourke. 



- Some of the Shawnees had even penetrated from Tennessee into South 

 Carolina, where they were known as Savannahs a name still surviving in the 

 river so called. Others (Cheyennes and Arapahoes) had pushed westwards 

 beyond the Missouri to South Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado, here forming 

 the extreme westerly range of the Algonquian peoples. 



