PREHISTORIC ABORIGINES OF MINNESOTA 213 



stocks that were, as is known, thinly dispersed along the river courses 

 and ranged in pursuit of game or of their enemies occasionally over the 

 plains. The Athabascan stock, now occupying the interior of Alaska 

 and of northern Canada, may be presumed to have been the first, or 

 among the first, to leave their pristine seats. But they must have left 

 a considerable number of their friends at home, since they still subsist 

 in a large tract in eastern Arizona, western New Mexico and south- 

 western Texas, under the names of Apache and Navajo, with their 

 subdivisions. The Shoshonean family may not have moved far from 

 their pristine home, at least seem not to have entirely abandoned it, 

 since the Shoshonean area still lies contiguous to the Pacific coast in 

 southern California. They apparently simply improved the opportunity 

 of expansion, and latterly perhaps dispossessed some weaker tribes. 

 Still, it is quite possible that the Shoshonean people were powerful and 

 spread over a wide interior area from which they have never departed 

 even during the prevalence of the glacial climates of the north. 



The two great Indian families, however, in which we are most in- 

 terested are the Algonquian and the Siouan. Let us notice the con- 

 trasts in their distribution. The Algonquian spreads over the north- 

 eastern part of the United States and Canada, with a small root linger- 

 ing adjoining the Shoshonean in Colorado, but has no representative on 

 the southeast Atlantic coast. It is true that according to the map the 

 Algonquian stock extends as far south on the Atlantic seaboard as North 

 Carolina, but this southward expansion there is of later date and 

 can be excluded from the discussion. Indeed, the whole Delaware 

 confederacy, covering the Algonquian areas in New Jersey, New York, 

 and some portions of New England as well as all of that in the stales 

 of Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and the most of Illinois, 

 can likewise be excluded, since, as will appear, their acquisition of those 

 areas is of comparatively recent date. It appears, therefore, if the 

 Algonquian stock was governed in post-glacial time by the forces which 

 have been mentioned, that that people started from the southwestern 

 country, spread over the interior plains, and preempted the timbered 

 regions of Canada and the northern United States. It hence follows 

 that the northern part of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and the 

 most of New England were the first settled habitats, in the United 

 States, of the Algonquian people. Prior to the Dakotan incursion, the 

 Algonquian probably controlled areas farther south, especially in Min- 

 nesota, while the mainly uninhabited interior, i. e., the plains of the 

 Missouri and of the upper Mississippi, were the fields over which for 

 a long period of time all the surrounding nations sent war parties and 

 hunters, but did not venture to make permanent settlements. 



Now compare with this the distribution of the Siouan stock. It has 

 two small areas on the Atlantic seaboard contiguous to similar areas 



