Derivation: A Spanish word meaning “butterfly,” applied to a county in California and subsequently taken for the family name.

Latham mentions the remnants of three distinct bands of the Coconoon, each with its own language, in the north of Mariposa County. These are classed together under the above name. More recently the tribes speaking languages allied to the Coconūn have been treated of under the family name Yokut. As, however, the stock was established by Latham on a sound basis, his name is here restored.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The territory of the Mariposan family is quite irregular in outline. On the north it is bounded by the Fresno River up to the point of its junction with the San Joaquin; thence by a line running to the northeast corner of the Salinan territory in San Benito County, California; on the west by a line running from San Benito to Mount Pinos. From the middle of the western shore of Tulare Lake to the ridge at Mount Pinos on the south, the Mariposan area is merely a narrow strip in and along the foothills. Occupying one-half of the western and all the southern shore of Tulare Lake, and bounded on the north by a line running from the southeast corner of Tulare Lake due east to the first great spur of the Sierra Nevada range is the territory of the intrusive Shoshoni. On the east the secondary range of the Sierra Nevada forms the Mariposan boundary.

In addition to the above a small strip of territory on the eastern bank of the San Joaquin is occupied by the Cholovone division of the Mariposan family, between the Tuolumne and the point where the San Joaquin turns to the west before entering Suisun Bay.

TRIBES.

Population.—There are 145 of the Indians of this family now attached to the Mission Agency, California.

MOQUELUMNAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From the river and hill of same name in Calaveras County, California; according to Powers the Meewoc name for the river is Wakalumitoh.

The Talatui mentioned by Hale68 as on the Kassima (Cosumnes) River belong to the above family. Though this author clearly distinguished the language from any others with which he was acquainted, he nowhere expressed the opinion that it is entitled to family rank or gave it a family name. Talatui is mentioned as a tribe from which he obtained an incomplete vocabulary.

It was not until 1856 that the distinctness of the linguistic family was fully set forth by Latham. Under the head of Moquelumne, this author gathers several vocabularies representing different languages and dialects of the same stock. These are the Talatui of Hale, the Tuolumne from Schoolcraft, the Sonoma dialects as represented by the Tshokoyem vocabulary, the Chocuyem and Youkiousme paternosters, and the Olamentke of Kostromitonov in Bäer’s Beiträge. He also places here provisionally the paternosters from the Mission de Santa Clara and the Vallee de los Tulares of Mofras; also the language Guiloco de la Mission de San Francisco. The Costano containing the five tribes of the Mission of Dolores, viz., the Ahwastes, Olhones or Costanos of the coast, Romonans, Tulomos and the Altahmos seemed to Latham to differ from the Moquelumnan language. Concerning them he states “upon the whole, however, the affinities seem to run in the direction of the languages of the next group, especially in that of the Ruslen.” He adds: “Nevertheless, for the present I place the Costano by itself, as a transitional form of speech to the languages spoken north, east, and south of the Bay of San Francisco.” Recent investigation by Messrs. Curtin and Henshaw have confirmed the soundness of Latham’s views and, as stated under head of the Costanoan family, the two groups of languages are considered to be distinct.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The Moquelumnan family occupies the territory bounded on the north by the Cosumne River, on the south by the Fresno River, on the east by the Sierra Nevada, and on the west by the San Joaquin River, with the exception of a strip on the east bank occupied by the Cholovone. A part of this family occupies also a territory bounded on the south by San Francisco Bay and the western half of San Pablo Bay; on the west by the Pacific Ocean from the Golden Gate to Bodega Head; on the north by a line running from Bodega Head to the Yukian territory northeast of Santa Rosa, and on the east by a line running from the Yukian territory to the northernmost point of San Pablo Bay.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—Comparatively few of the Indians of this family survive, and these are mostly scattered in the mountains and away from the routes of travel. As they were never gathered on reservations, an accurate census has not been taken.

In the detached area north of San Francisco Bay, chiefly in Marin County, formerly inhabited by the Indians of this family, almost none remain. There are said to be none living about the mission of San Rafael, and Mr. Henshaw, in 1888, succeeded in locating only six at Tomales Bay, where, however, he obtained a very good vocabulary from a woman.

MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From the name of the principal tribe of the Creek Confederacy.

In the Muskhogee family Gallatin includes the Muskhogees proper, who lived on the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers; the Hitchittees, living on the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers; and the Seminoles of the peninsula of Florida. It was his opinion, formed by a comparison of vocabularies, that the Choctaws and Chickasaws should also be classed under this family. In fact, he called69 the family Choctaw Muskhogee. In deference, however, to established usage, the two tribes were kept separate in his table and upon the colored map. In 1848 he appears to be fully convinced of the soundness of the view doubtfully expressed in 1836, and calls the family the Chocta-Muskhog.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The area occupied by this family was very extensive. It may be described in a general way as extending from the Savannah River and the Atlantic west to the Mississippi, and from the Gulf of Mexico north to the Tennessee River. All of this territory was held by Muskhogean tribes except the small areas occupied by the Yuchi, Ná’htchi, and some small settlements of Shawni.

Upon the northeast Muskhogean limits are indeterminate. The Creek claimed only to the Savannah River; but upon its lower course the Yamasi are believed to have extended east of that river in the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.70 The territorial line between the Muskhogean family and the Catawba tribe in South Carolina can only be conjectured.

It seems probable that the whole peninsula of Florida was at one time held by tribes of Timuquanan connection; but from 1702 to 1708, when the Apalachi were driven out, the tribes of northern Florida also were forced away by the English. After that time the Seminole and the Yamasi were the only Indians that held possession of the Floridian peninsula.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—There is an Alibamu town on Deep Creek, Indian Territory, an affluent of the Canadian, Indian Territory. Most of the inhabitants are of this tribe. There are Alibamu about 20 miles south of Alexandria, Louisiana, and over one hundred in Polk County, Texas.

So far as known only three women of the Apalachi survived in 1886, and they lived at the Alibamu town above referred to. The United States Census bulletin for 1890 gives the total number of pureblood Choctaw at 9,996, these being principally at Union Agency, Indian Territory. Of the Chicasa there are 3,464 at the same agency; Creek 9,291; Seminole 2,539; of the latter there are still about 200 left in southern Florida.

There are four families of Koasáti, about twenty-five individuals, near the town of Shepherd, San Jacinto County, Texas. Of the Yamasi none are known to survive.

NATCHESAN FAMILY.

The Na’htchi, according to Gallatin, a residue of the well-known nation of that name, came from the banks of the Mississippi, and joined the Creek less than one hundred years ago.71 The seashore from Mobile to the Mississippi was then inhabited by several small tribes, of which the Na’htchi was the principal.

Before 1730 the tribe lived in the vicinity of Natchez, Miss., along St. Catherine Creek. After their dispersion by the French in 1730 most of the remainder joined the Chicasa and afterwards the Upper Creek. They are now in Creek and Cherokee Nations, Indian Territory.

The linguistic relations of the language spoken by the Taensa tribe have long been in doubt, and it is probable that they will ever remain so. As no vocabulary or text of this language was known to be in existence, the “Grammaire et vocabulaire de la langue Taensa, avec textes traduits et commentés par J.-D. Haumonté, Parisot, L. Adam,” published in Paris in 1882, was received by American linguistic students with peculiar interest. Upon the strength of the linguistic material embodied in the above Mr. Gatschet (loc. cit.) was led to affirm the complete linguistic isolation of the language.

Grave doubts of the authenticity of the grammar and vocabulary have, however, more recently been brought forward.72 The text contains internal evidences of the fraudulent character, if not of the whole, at least of a large part of the material. So palpable and gross are these that until the character of the whole can better be understood by the inspection of the original manuscript, alleged to be in Spanish, by a competent expert it will be far safer to reject both the vocabulary and grammar. By so doing we are left without any linguistic evidence whatever of the relations of the Taensa language.

D’Iberville, it is true, supplies us with the names of seven Taensa towns which were given by a Taensa Indian who accompanied him; but most of these, according to Mr. Gatschet, were given, in the Chicasa trade jargon or, as termed by the French, the “Mobilian trade jargon,” which is at least a very natural supposition. Under these circumstances we can, perhaps, do no better than rely upon the statements of several of the old writers who appear to be unanimous in regarding the language of the Taensa as of Na’htchi connection. Du Pratz’s statement to that effect is weakened from the fact that the statement also includes the Shetimasha, the language of which is known from a vocabulary to be totally distinct not only from the Na’htchi but from any other. To supplement Du Pratz’s testimony, such as it is, we have the statements of M. de Montigny, the missionary who affirmed the affinity of the Taensa language to that of the Na’htchi, before he had visited the latter in 1699, and of Father Gravier, who also visited them. For the present, therefore, the Taensa language is considered to be a branch of the Na’htchi.

The Taensa formerly dwelt upon the Mississippi, above and close to the Na’htchi. Early in the history of the French settlements a portion of the Taensa, pressed upon by the Chicasa, fled and were settled by the French upon Mobile Bay.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—There still are four Na’htchi among the Creek in Indian Territory and a number in the Cheroki Hills near the Missouri border.

PALAIHNIHAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From the Klamath word p’laikni, signifying “mountaineers” or “uplanders” (Gatschet).

In two places73 Hale uses the terms Palaihnih and Palaiks interchangeably, but inasmuch as on page 569, in his formal table of linguistic families and languages, he calls the family Palaihnih, this is given preference over the shorter form of the name.

Though here classed as a distinct family, the status of the Pit River dialects can not be considered to be finally settled. Powers speaks of the language as “hopelessly consonantal, harsh, and sesquipedalian,” * * * “utterly unlike the sweet and simple languages of the Sacramento.” He adds that the personal pronouns show it to be a true Digger Indian tongue. Recent investigations by Mr. Gatschet lead him, however, to believe that ultimately it will be found to be linguistically related to the Sastean languages.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The family was located by Hale to the southeast of the Lutuami (Klamath). They chiefly occupied the area drained by the Pit River in extreme northeastern California. Some of the tribe were removed to Round Valley Reservation, California.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Powers, who has made a special study of the tribe, recognizes the following principal tribal divisions:74

PIMAN FAMILY.

Latham used the term Pima in 1850, citing under it three dialects or languages. Subsequently, in 1856, he used the same term for one of the five divisions into which he separates the languages of Sonora and Sinaloa.

The same year Turner gave a brief account of Pima as a distinct language, his remarks applying mainly to Pima proper of the Gila River, Arizona. This tribe had been visited by Emory and Johnston and also described by Bartlett. Turner refers to a short vocabulary in the Mithridates, another of Dr. Coulter’s in Royal Geological Society Journal, vol. XI, 1841, and a third by Parry in Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, vol. III, 1853. The short vocabulary he himself published was collected by Lieut. Whipple.

Only a small portion of the territory occupied by this family is included within the United States, the greater portion being in Mexico where it extends to the Gulf of California. The family is represented in the United States by three tribes, Pima alta, Sobaipuri, and Papago. The former have lived for at least two centuries with the Maricopa on the Gila River about 160 miles from the mouth. The Sobaipuri occupied the Santa Cruz and San Pedro Rivers, tributaries of the Gila, but are no longer known. The Papago territory is much more extensive and extends to the south across the border. In recent times the two tribes have been separated, but the Pima territory as shown upon the map was formerly continuous to the Gila River.

According to Buschmann, Gatschet, Brinton, and others the Pima language is a northern branch of the Nahuatl, but this relationship has yet to be demonstrated.75

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—Of the above tribes the Pima and Papago only are within our boundaries. Their numbers under the Pima Agency, Arizona,76 are Pima, 4,464; Papago, 5,163.

PUJUNAN FAMILY.

The following tribes were placed in this group by Latham: Pujuni, Secumne, Tsamak of Hale, and the Cushna of Schoolcraft. The name adopted for the family is the name of a tribe given by Hale.77 This was one of the two races into which, upon the information of Captain Sutter as derived by Mr. Dana, all the Sacramento tribes were believed to be divided. “These races resembled one another in every respect but language.”

Hale gives short vocabularies of the Pujuni, Sekumne, and Tsamak. Hale did not apparently consider the evidence as a sufficient basis for a family, but apparently preferred to leave its status to be settled later.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The tribes of this family have been carefully studied by Powers, to whom we are indebted for most all we know of their distribution. They occupied the eastern bank of the Sacramento in California, beginning some 80 or 100 miles from its mouth, and extended northward to within a short distance of Pit River, where they met the tribes of the Palaihnihan family. Upon the east they reached nearly to the border of the State, the Palaihnihan, Shoshonean, and Washoan families hemming them in in this direction.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

QUORATEAN FAMILY.

Derivation: Name of a band at mouth of Salmon River, California. Etymology unknown.

This family name is equivalent to the Cahroc or Karok of Powers and later authorities.

In 1853, as above cited, Gibbs gives Eh-nek as the titular heading of his paragraphs upon the language of this family, with the remark that it is “The name of a band at the mouth of the Salmon, or Quoratem river.” He adds that “This latter name may perhaps be considered as proper to give to the family, should it be held one.” He defines the territory occupied by the family as follows: “The language reaches from Bluff creek, the upper boundary of the Pohlik, to about Clear creek, thirty or forty miles above the Salmon; varying, however, somewhat from point to point.”

The presentation of the name Quoratem, as above, seems sufficiently formal, and it is therefore accepted for the group first indicated by Gibbs.

In 1856 Latham renamed the family Ehnik, after the principal band, locating the tribe, or rather the language, south of the Shasti and Lutuami areas.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The geographic limits of the family are somewhat indeterminate, though the main area occupied by the tribes is well known. The tribes occupy both banks of the lower Klamath from a range of hills a little above Happy Camp to the junction of the Trinity, and the Salmon River from its mouth to its sources. On the north, Quoratean tribes extended to the Athapascan territory near the Oregon line.

TRIBES.

Population.—According to a careful estimate made by Mr. Curtin in the region in 1889, the Indians of this family number about 600.

SALINAN FAMILY.

Derivation: From river of same name.

The language formerly spoken at the Missions of San Antonio and San Miguel in Monterey County, California, have long occupied a doubtful position. By some they have been considered distinct, not only from each other, but from all other languages. Others have held that they represent distinct dialects of the Chumashan (Santa Barbara) group of languages. Vocabularies collected in 1884 by Mr. Henshaw show clearly that the two are closely connected dialects and that they are in no wise related to any other family.

The group established by Latham under the name Salinas is a heterogeneous one, containing representatives of no fewer than four distinct families. Gioloco, which he states “may possibly belong to this group, notwithstanding its reference to the Mission of San Francisco,” really is congeneric with the vocabularies assigned by Latham to the Mendocinan family. The “Soledad of Mofras” belongs to the Costanoan family mentioned on page 348 of the same essay, as also do the Ruslen and Carmel. Of the three remaining forms of speech, Eslen, San Antonio, and San Miguel, the two latter are related dialects, and belong within the drainage of the Salinas River. The term Salinan is hence applied to them, leaving the Eslen language to be provided with a name.

Population.—Though the San Antonio and San Miguel were probably never very populous tribes, the Missions of San Antonio and San Miguel, when first established in the years 1771 and 1779, contained respectively 1,400 and 1,300 Indians. Doubtless the larger number of these converts were gathered in the near vicinity of the two missions and so belonged to this family. In 1884 when Mr. Henshaw visited the missions he was able to learn of the existence of only about a dozen Indians of this family, and not all of these could speak their own language.

SALISHAN FAMILY.

The extent of the Salish or Flathead family was unknown to Gallatin, as indeed appears to have been the exact locality of the tribe of which he gives an anonymous vocabulary from the Duponceau collection. The tribe is stated to have resided upon one of the branches of the Columbia River, “which must be either the most southern branch of Clarke’s River or the most northern branch of Lewis’s River.” The former supposition was correct. As employed by Gallatin the family embraced only a single tribe, the Flathead tribe proper. The Atnah, a Salishan tribe, were considered by Gallatin to be distinct, and the name would be eligible as the family name; preference, however, is given to Salish. The few words from the Friendly Village near the sources of the Salmon River given by Gallatin in Archæologia Americana, II, 1836, pp. 15, 306, belong under this family.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

Since Gallatin’s time, through the labors of Riggs, Hale, Tolmie, Dawson, Boas, and others, our knowledge of the territorial limits of this linguistic family has been greatly extended. The most southern outpost of the family, the Tillamook and Nestucca, were established on the coast of Oregon, about 50 miles to the south of the Columbia, where they were quite separated from their kindred to the north by the Chinookan tribes. Beginning on the north side of Shoalwater Bay, Salishan tribes held the entire northwestern part of Washington, including the whole of the Puget Sound region, except only the Macaw territory about Cape Flattery, and two insignificant spots, one near Port Townsend, the other on the Pacific coast to the south of Cape Flattery, which were occupied by Chimakuan tribes. Eastern Vancouver Island to about midway of its length was also held by Salishan tribes, while the great bulk of their territory lay on the mainland opposite and included much of the upper Columbia. On the south they were hemmed in mainly by the Shahaptian tribes. Upon the east Salishan tribes dwelt to a little beyond the Arrow Lakes and their feeder, one of the extreme north forks of the Columbia. Upon the southeast Salishan tribes extended into Montana, including the upper drainage of the Columbia. They were met here in 1804 by Lewis and Clarke. On the northeast Salish territory extended to about the fifty-third parallel. In the northwest it did not reach the Chilcat River.

Within the territory thus indicated there is considerable diversity of customs and a greater diversity of language. The language is split into a great number of dialects, many of which are doubtless mutually unintelligible.

The relationship of this family to the Wakashan is a very interesting problem. Evidences of radical affinity have been discovered by Boas and Gatschet, and the careful study of their nature and extent now being prosecuted by the former may result in the union of the two, though until recently they have been considered quite distinct.

PRINCIPAL TRIBES.

Population.—The total Salish population of British Columbia is 12,325, inclusive of the Bellacoola, who number, with the Hailtzuk, 2,500, and those in the list of unclassified, who number 8,522, distributed as follows:

Under the Fraser River Agency, 4,986; Kamloops Agency, 2,579; Cowichan Agency, 1,852; Okanagan Agency, 942; Williams Lake Agency, 1,918; Kootenay Agency, 48.

Most of the Salish in the United States are on reservations. They number about 5,500, including a dozen small tribes upon the Yakama Reservation, which have been consolidated with the Clickatat (Shahaptian) through intermarriage. The Salish of the United States are distributed as follows (Indian Affairs Report, 1889, and U.S. Census Bulletin, 1890):

Colville Agency, Washington, Coeur d’ Alene, 422; Lower Spokane, 417; Lake, 303; Colville, 247; Okinagan, 374; Kespilem, 67; San Pueblo (Sans Puell), 300; Calispel, 200; Upper Spokane, 170.

Puyallup Agency, Washington, Quaitso, 82; Quinaielt (Queniut), 101; Humptulip, 19; Puyallup, 563; Chehalis, 135; Nisqually, 94; Squaxon, 60; Clallam, 351; Skokomish, 191; Oyhut, Hoquiam, Montesano, and Satsup, 29.

Tulalip Agency, Washington, Snohomish, 443; Madison, 144; Muckleshoot, 103; Swinomish, 227; Lummi, 295.

Grande Ronde Agency, Oregon, Tillamook, 5.

SASTEAN FAMILY.