386 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



absorbed or destroyed by other Algonquians, as were the now extinct 

 Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland. 



I am more rehictant to follow Birket-Smith in attributing to the 

 Salish Indians of British Columbia an early home on the Canadian 

 plains from which they were driven westward by the Athapaskans, 

 because so many traits in Salish culture point to a southern rather 

 than a Plains' origin, and their language, even should it prove to be 

 AJgonquian, as Sapir suggests, differs so widely from Blackfoot, Cree, 

 and other members of that linguistic stock that it surely indicates a 

 very long separation. Nevertheless, we must not overlook the pos- 

 sibility that the Salish Indians may have a dual origin, that they may 

 be an amalgamation of two groups, one of which came originally 

 from the south, and the other from the Canadian plains. 



Shapiro and Seltzer ^ have pointed out the marked resemblance in 

 physical type between the northeastern Algonquians (including the 

 Hurons, who absorbed many Algonquians into their ranks), tlie 

 Chipewyan Indians of Lake Athabasca, and large groups of Arctic 

 Eskimo, particularly those in Coronation Gulf, Smith Sound, and 

 Seward Peninsula. Now we know that at least the Coronation Gulf 

 Eskimo, like those of Hudson Bay, dwelt inland only a few centuries 

 ago. Hence physical anthropology also seems to indicate that the 

 Eskimo and Algonquians formerly lived in such close contact, some- 

 where in the heart of Canada, that either the Eskimo freely took 

 Algonquian wives or certain Algonquian groups adopted the Eskimo 

 culture, and, under pressure from the invading Athapaskans, moved 

 northward to the Arctic coast. 



It is idle to speculate on the Asiatic home of the Athapaskans or 

 the route they followed to Bering Strait. Even archeology may 

 never be able to throw light on this question, because the majority 

 of their tools and weapons had blades and points of bone rather than 

 of stone, and bone disintegrates very rapidly. This, at least, is true 

 of Canada. In Alaska there seems to be a greater wealth of stone 

 implements, and there, too, we find pottery as far up the Yukon 

 River as the mouth of the Tanana. Both these traits, however, may 

 well be due to Eskimo influence, since no other American Athapaskan 

 tribe was acquainted with pottery unless it bordered on a pottery-using 

 people. 



We may assume, then, until evidence to the contrary is forthcom- 

 ing, that hordes of Athapaskan-speaking peoples crossed Bering 

 Strait some time in the first millennium B. C. and forced their way 

 southward, some by the way of the Mackenzie River, others down the 



' Shapiro, H. L., The Alaskan Eskimo. Anthrop. Pnp. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 31, 

 pt. 6, 1931 ; The origin of the Eskimo. Proc. 5th Pacific Scl. Congr., vol. 4, pp. 2723-2732, 

 1933. 



Seltzer, Carl C, The anthropometry of the western and copper Eskimos. Human Biol., 

 vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 312-370, 1933. 



