Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871 edition. Excerpt: ...themselves to an important position in the Ganowanian family. They possess a single stock language spoken in numerous dialects. None of these nations formerly cultivated, with the exception of the Navajoes. In the northern division agriculture was impossible from the coldness of the climate; and in the southern Explorations for a Railroad Route, &c. to the Pacific, VIII. Rep. on Ind. Tribes, p. 84. equally impossible, without irrigation, from its dryness. The Athapascans depend for subsistence upon fish and game; the Apaches partly upon game, but chiefly upon the fruits of marauding enterprises upon their neighbors. A small portion, however, are now cultivators to some extent. Athapasco-Apache Nations. I. Athapascan Nations. 1. Slave Lake Indians (A-cha'-o-tin-ne). 2. Red Knives (Talsote'-e-na). 3. Makenzie River Indians Ta-na'-tin-ne, possibly identical with the Hares). 4. Kutchin or Louchieux. 5. Takuthe. (6. Chepewyans. 7. Dog Rib. 8. Beaver Indians). 9. Noh'hannies. 10. Sheep Indians. 11. Sussees. 12. Tacullies not in the Table). These nations occupy a broad and continuous area, extending from the Churchill River and near the north branch of the Siskatchewan, on the south, to the country of the Eskimo on the borders of the Arctic Sea on the north; and from the Barren Lands and Hudson's Bay on the east, to the Rocky Mountains on the west. They are also spread irregularly over a large area west of the mountains in British Columbia, ranging northward to the Yukon and down this river into the Russian Possessions, and westward nearly to the Pacific Ocean. Southward of these areas traces of their language have been discovered on the Umpkwa and Rogue Rivers in Oregon, and as low down as the Trinity River in the northern part of...