90 THE GEORGE CATLtN INDIAN GALLEHY. 



ment. Wo may, however, group them in such a niauuer as roughly to indicate their 

 relationship. This I do helow. [The numbers to the left refer to the pages of Mr. 

 Catlin's (this) catalogue, where the tribes noted can be found. — T. D.] 

 Page 117. Cree. 



Old Algonkin. 

 Montagnais. 



Page 124. Chipeway. 

 126. Ottawa. 

 134. Pottawattomie. 

 141. Miami. 

 140. Peoria. 



140. Pea. 



141. Piankisliaw. 

 139. Kaskaskia. 

 132. Menominee. 



13 to 39. ^^^*'- 

 i Pox. 



136. Kikapoo. 



Shesliatapoosh. 



Secoffee. 



Micmao. 



Melisceet. 



Etchemin. 



Abnaki. 



Moliegan. 



Massachusetts. 



Shawnee. 



^ Minsi, ^ 



Page 197. } Unami, > (Lenape — Delaware?) 



' TJnalachtigo. ^ 



Kanticoke. 



Powhatan. 



Pamticoke. 



Pago 101. Blackfoot. 



115. Gros Ventre. 



88. Sheyenne, 



Granting, as we must, some common geographical center for these many dialects, 

 the question where this was located becomes an interesting one. 



More than one attempt to answer it has been made. Mr. Lewis H. Morgan thought 

 there was evidence to show that the valley of the Columbia River, Oregon, " was the 

 initial point from which the Algonkin stock emigrated to the Great Lake region, 

 and thence to the Atlantic coast." * This is in direct coniiict with the evidence of 

 language, as the Blackfoot or Satsika is the most corrupt and altered of the Algonkin 

 dialects. Basing his argument on this evidence, Mr. Horatio Hale reaches a conclu- 

 sion precisely the reverse of that of Morgan. " The course of migration of the Indian 

 tribes," writes Mr. Hale, "has been from the Atlantic coast westward and southward. 

 The traditions of the Algonkins seem to point to Hudson's Bay and the coast of Lab- 

 rador."! This latter view is certainly that which accords best with the testimony 

 of language and of history. 



We know that both Chipeways and Crees have been steadily pressing westward 

 since their country was first explored, driving before them the Blackfeet and Dakotas.t 



The Cree language is built upon a few simple, unchangeable radicals and element- 

 ary words, denoting being, relation, energy, etc. ; it has extreme regularity of con- 

 struction, a single negative, is almost wholly verbal and markedly incomparative, 

 has its grammatical elements better defined than its neighbors, and a more constant 

 phonetic system. § For these and similar reasons we are justified in considering it 

 the nearest representative we possess of the primitive Algonkin tongue, and, unless 



*Lewis H. Morgan, Indian Migration, in Beach's Indian Miscellany, p. 218. 



tH. Hale, Indian Migrations as Evidenced by Language, p. 24 (Chicago, 1883). 



tSee the K. P. A. Lacombe Dictionnaire de la Langue des Oris, Introd., p. 51 (Montreal, 1874). 



§See Joseph Howse, A Orammar of the Cree Language, p. 13, et at. (London, 1842). 



