24 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



arid regions and other factors. But the distribution would take 

 place, following lines of least resistance. 



The natural course of migration would be southward along the 

 coast of Alaska and British Columbia. Food would become more 

 abtindant as the more southern climes were approached. The entire 

 Pacific coast has been a cradle land of various linguistic stocks 

 of the continent and the seat of many complex cultures. There 

 many different stocks lived, learning from experience the necessity 

 of establishing rules for fishing, hunting and gathering nut and root 

 foods. The Pacific coast area is narrow and hemmed in the tribes 

 between the mountains and the ocean. The population was relatively 

 congested. In time some of the most highly distinctive culture traits 

 and specialized forms of carving and decoration developed in this 

 area. 



West of the Sierra Nevadas another condition is to be noted. 

 Instead of congestion there is a wide sweeping distribution of 

 linguistic stocks. The entire interior of Alaska and of western 

 Canada was held by the various divisions of the Athapascan stock. 

 Once it may have occupied the coast and later lost it to the Eskimo. 

 But observation indicates that the Athapascan stock held the coast 

 only about Cook inlet. Even Hudson's Bay became shut to them 

 when the Eskimo intruded. Southward the Athapascans pushed down 

 the Rocky mountain foothills and occupied some of the most arid 

 and most inhospitable regions of what we now know as New Mexico, 

 Arizona, western Texas and Chihuahua. In a few isolated spots 

 they found small tracts along the Pacific in Oregon and northern 

 California. Several interesting observations may be made upon the 

 Athapascan stock. It occupied the least desired lands — the bleak 

 rigorous north and the arid, sun blistered deserts of the south, always 

 shut away from the coasts. In the north its culture was limited, in 

 the south it was far more complex, as a survey of the Navaho and 

 Apache divisions of this stock will demonstrate. The entire stock 

 is peace loving, most industrious, fits itself to its several occupational 

 areas and quickly assimilates the culture of any superior tribe or 

 stock surrounding it. 



While the Athapascan stock swept from the north to the south, 

 the great Algonkian stock spread out like a triangular fan, from 

 tlie Rockies to the interior of all Labrador and to the New 

 England coast. Holding back the Eskimo and the northern Athapas- 

 cans on the north it held the southwestern shores of Hudson's Bay, 

 most of the region north of the Great Lakes, and spread down the 



