June 17, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



917 



that their supposed affinities appear. In 

 fact, apart from the numerals the resem- 

 blances are very slight and it may be pos- 

 sible that they indicate contact rather than 

 relationship. Further study of these In- 

 dians is greatly needed. Their reference 

 to the Paiute stock in the present paper is 

 only provisional. 



Contrasting the distribution of the Yo- 

 kut tribes collectively with that of the five 

 undoubted Paiute tribes of the same region, 

 it appears that the Tokut inhabit the hot 

 San Joaquin Valley (Lower Sonoran) and 

 adjacent foothills (Upper Sonoran), while 

 the Paiute tribes inhabit the cooler Pon- 

 derosa pine belt of the mountains (Transi- 

 tion zone). Excepting the Chukchancys, 

 who have pushed a little way into the Pon- 

 derosa pines, none of the Yokut tribes 

 reach higher than the Digger pine belt, and 

 only three of them (Chuk-chan'-cy, Kosh- 

 sho'-o and Cho-ki'-min-ah) reach high 

 enough to come within this belt. 



It would be convenient to speak of the 

 linguistic families or stocks as 'nations' — 

 as the Paiute nation, the Yokut nation, 

 and so on— but such a designation would 

 be incorrect, for the reason that nothing 

 like political unity of the component tribes 

 exists. 



As well known to ethnologists, the names 

 of linguistic stocks often present difficul- 

 ties, and the names of tribes still greater 

 difficulties. In cases where Indians have 

 a stock name for themselves — as the desert 

 Paiute and Shoshone; or a tribal name — 

 as Wuksache, Wiktchumne, Chukchaney— 

 there is no trouble, but in cases where they 

 have no tribal name, and such cases are 

 common, various complications arise. 



Many tribes speak of themselves as the 

 PEOPLE, and in numerous instances their 

 word for people has been adopted by eth- 

 nologists (and sometimes by themselves) 

 in lieu of a tribal or stock name. Among 

 the family names of this class are Midu, 



Muwa and Yokut ; among the tribal names 

 are Nim and New-oo'-ah, both meaning 

 people— the first from neum or, num, the 

 last from new'-dh. In some cases a loca- 

 tive or place name is prefixed to the stock 

 name to distinguish the tribe — as Ahwanee 

 Muwa, Chowchilla Muwa, and so on. In 

 the case of tribes having no definite name 

 for themselves it is sometimes practicable 

 to use the name given them by another 

 tribe — for every tribe is sure to have a 

 name in the language of its neighbor. 

 Such names are often based on points of 

 the compass, meaning north people, south 

 people, and so on. 



While the Yokuts have no common or 

 stock name for themselves (Yokut being the 

 word meaning 'people' in some, but not 

 all, of the tribes), every tribe has a fixed 

 and definite tribal name. In the case of 

 the desert Paiutes the opposite condition 

 prevails, for all the tribes use the stock 

 name, while only a few have definite tribal 

 names. Similarly, several of the Paiute 

 tribes on the west slope of the Sierra appear 

 to lack distinctive names for themselves; 

 hence the names here given for them are 

 provisional and tentative. The doubtful 

 names are Nim, Holkoma, Pakanepul, and 

 possibly also New-oo'-ah; the well-estab- 

 lished names are Kokoheba, Emtimbitch, 

 Wuksache. Of these, Kokoheba is a place 

 name— the name of a village — which has 

 come to be applied to the tribe. 



C. Hart Meeriam. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 



THE CEYPTOGAMIC BOTANY OP THE HAERIMAN 

 EXPEDITION.* 



The scientific results of the Harriman ex- 

 pedition to Alaska are beginning to be made 

 public and the handsomely bound volume re- 

 cently issued gives us the first of the three 



* ' Harriman Alaska Expedition/ Volume V., 

 ' Cryptogamio Botany.' New York, Doubleday, 

 Page and Co. 1904. Pp. 404 and 44 plates. 



