230 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



CHAPTER V. 



SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIP OF THE GANOWANIAN FAMILY.— Continued. 

 Athapasco- Apache, and other Nations, 



I. Athapasco-Apache Nations— Identity of the Branclies—l. Athapascan Nations— Their Area and Dialects— System of 

 Relationship of Slave Lake Indians— Its Indicative Features— Identical with the Common Form— Syijtt-m of Hare 

 Indians- Indicative Relationships— System of Red Knives— Last two in General Agreement with the First— 

 Kfitchin or Louchieux — Their Area and Personal Appearance— Indicative Features of their System of Relationship 



It agrees with the First — Tukuthe — Their System of Relationship— It agrees with the First — 2. Apache Nations 



Valley of tlie Columbia— Remarkable Characteristics of this Region— Abundance of Natural Subsistence— The 



Nursery of the Ganow^nian Family — Initial Point of Migrations— Great Number of Stock Languages. — II. Salish 

 Nations— Dialects— Not fully accessible— 1. Spokane System of Relationship- Opulence of the Nomenclature- 

 Indicative Features — Special Characteristics — It possesses the Radical Features of the Common System — 2. 

 Okinaken— Schedule incomplete— Agrees with the Spokane.— III. Sahaptiu Nations— Dialects— Yakama System 

 of Relationship— Its Indicative Features— It contains the Principal Characteristics of the Common System.— IV. 

 Kootenay System— Schedule Incomplete— Kootenays and Flatbows possess an Independent Stock Language- 

 Elaborateness of System within this Area.— V. Shoshonee Nations— Their Area— Their Migration the last, in point 

 of time, from the Valley of the Columbia— A Pending IVIigration at tlie Epoch of European Colonization— System 

 of Relationshipof the Tabegwaches — Fulness of the Nomenclature — Its Speci.al Features— Contains Characteristics 

 of the Common System— The Tabegwaches closed the series, except the Village Indians, and the Eskimo— System 

 nearly Universal amongst the North American Indian Nations — It furnishes a substantial Basis for their Con- 

 solidation into a Great Family of Mankind. 



The Athapasco-Apache nations, in their two principal divisions, are widely 

 separated from each other gecfgraphically. One of them, the Athapascan, occupies 

 the chief part of the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company ; and tlie greater 

 part of New Caledonia, or British Columbia, west of the Eocky Mountains ; whilst 

 the other, the Apache, holds the greater part of New Mexico, and the northern 

 parts of the Mexican State of Cliiliuahua. Each division consists of a number of 

 independent nations. The identity of their languages was first shown by the late 

 Prof. William W. Turner in 1852, and afterwards more fully in 1856.' It was a 

 remarkable as well as important discovery. Their respective areas of occupancy 

 were not comparable with those held by the Algonkin and Dakotan nations, which 

 serves to explain their personal inferiority. But they have maintained their posi- 

 tion, and accjuircd large territorial possessions by means of which they have raised 

 themselves to an important position in the Ganowanian family. They possess a 

 single stock language spoken in numerous dialects. None of these nations for- 

 merly cultivated, with the exception of the Navajoes. In the northern division 

 agriculture was impossible from the coldness of the climate ; and in the southern 



' Explorations for a Railroad Route, &c. to the Pacific, VIII. Rep. on Ind. Tribes, p. 84. 



