INTRODUCTION. 19 
the Southwest which have no known connections else- 
where. These are the Zuni language, spoken at the 
pueblo of that name, and in the outlying villages; the 
Keresan dialects, spoken at Acoma and certain villages 
in the Rio Grande drainage; and the Tewan languages, 
spoken along the Rio Grande and at one of the Hopi 
villages. 
It should be noted that recent studies have estab- 
lished the existence of a remote but definite linguistic 
relationship between the Shoshonean languages repre- 
sented in the Southwest by the Ute and the Hopi, 
and the Piman languages, which include the Pima, 
Papago, and the dialects of northwestern Mexico. 
Included in this larger group,- known as the Uto- 
Aztecan, is also the Nahua which is the language of 
the ancient Mexicans or Aztecs. 
The obvious conclusions from these linguistic facts 
are that peoples speaking various languages have in- 
vaded the Southwest at various times. The assumption 
is that people speaking the Uto-Aztecan languages 
occupied the Great Basin, the western part of Arizona, 
and the Sierra of Mexico in early times. Free communi- 
cation between the Hopi and the Ute of the north, and 
the Pima and other tribes of the south must have ceased 
many generations ago, either because the territory 
between them was uninhabited or because its inhabi- 
tants were alien in speech. The considerable difference 
between the Piman and the Shoshonean languages under 
average circumstances would only result after many 
centuries of separation. It is also proper to assume that 
the pueblo peoples mentioned above as speaking distinct 
languages, the Zuni, the Keres, and the Tewa, have been 
in the Southwest for a very long time. The Athapascan- 
speaking Navajo and Apache are by no means recent 
comers if one is judging in terms of history and of the 
