SwANTON] INDIAKS OP THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 801 



from the Mississippi Kiver to the Savannah and from the Tennes- 

 see to the Gulf excepting for minor areas already indicated. As 

 originally defined by Powell, it embraced two powerful peoples, the 

 Choctaw in the southwest and the Creek Confederation in the east 

 and center, each speaking a distinct language and possessed of a 

 distinct cultural life. Intermediate were the Chickasaw which spoke 

 the language of the former but shared numerous cultural features 

 with the latter. The Apalachee seem to have been related by lan- 

 guage to the Choctaw, but little is known of their cultural pattern. 

 There were several smaller tribes which shared the culture either of 

 the Choctaw or the Creeks. On the Mississippi, however, was a 

 group, represented most conspicuously by the Natchez, which spoke 

 a widely divergent Muskhogean tongue and had a correspondingly 

 divergent culture. In the opposite direction we find a similar con- 

 dition in northern Florida, where the Timucua tribes also had di- 

 vergent Muskhogean languages, or a divergent language, and corre- 

 sponding customs. The connections of the inhabitants of southern 

 Florida are unknown but they are believed to have been more directly 

 with the Choctaw and Apalachee. A near neighbor of the Natchez 

 on the Mississippi was the Tunica group, including five tribes ; west- 

 ward of the mouth of the Mississippi, the Chitimacha group of three 

 tribes ; and, extending beyond them to the neighborhood of Galveston, 

 the Atakapa, with certain connected tribes in the interior of Texas 

 beyond the Trinity. Westward of the Atakapa again were other 

 small linguistic groups, the Karankawa, Tonkawa, Coahuilteco, and 

 Tamaulipeco, constituting either widely divergent languages of one 

 stock or several small independent families. Little has been pre- 

 served of these languages and their past history and affiliations are 

 highly problematical, yet it is not impossible that they were con- 

 nected with the Siouan-Muskhogean languages as part of a larger 

 whole extending to California, where they are supposed to have been 

 represented by the great Hokan family. This is the theory of Sapir 

 and there is considerable to support it. In any case, the Tunica, the 

 Chitimacha, the Atakapa, and their allies are believed to have be- 

 longed to one stock which is in close structural agreement with the 

 Muskhogean and Siouan languages. From the Atakapa, inclusive, 

 westward the tribes actually fall outside of the cultural area of the 

 Southeast. 



COMMON" CULTURAL CHARACTERS 



In the discussion which follows I shall deal principally with the 

 Algonquians of the Northeast, the Siouans of the Northeast interior, 

 the Creeks, Timucua, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Natchez, Tu- 

 nica, Chitimacha, and Caddo, material from the remaining tribes 



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