resent
map. The great Athapascan family, for instance, occupying the larger
part of British America, is known from linguistic evidence to have sent
off colonies into Oregon (Wilopah, Tlatskanai, Coquille), California
(Smith River tribes, Kenesti or Wailakki tribes, Hupa), and Arizona and
New Mexico (Apache, Navajo). How long before European occupancy of this
country these migrations took place can not be told, but in the case of
most of them it was undoubtedly many years. By the test of language it
is seen that the great Siouan family, which we have come to look upon as
almost exclusively western, had one offshoot in Virginia (Tutelo),
another in North and South Carolina (Catawba), and a third in
Mississippi (Biloxi); and the Algonquian family, so important in the
early history of this country, while occupying a nearly continuous area
in the north and east, had yet secured a foothold, doubtless in very
recent times, in Wyoming and Colorado. These and other similar facts
sufficiently prove the power of individual tribes or gentes to sunder
relations with the great body of their kindred and to remove to distant
homes. Tested by linguistic evidence, such instances appear to be
exceptional, and the fact remains that in the great majority of cases
the tribes composing linguistic families occupy continuous areas, and
hence are and have been practically sedentary. Nor is the bond of a
common language, strong and enduring as that bond is usually thought to
be, entirely sufficient to explain the phenomenon here pointed out. When
small in number the linguistic tie would undoubtedly aid in binding
together the members of a tribe; but as the people speaking a common
language increase in number and come to have conflicting interests, the
linguistic tie has often proved to be an insufficient bond of union. In
the case of our Indian tribes feuds and internecine conflicts were
common between members of the same linguistic family. In fact, it is
probable that a very large number of the dialects into which Indian
languages are split originated as the result of internecine strife.
Factions, divided and separated from the parent body, by contact,
intermarriage, and incorporation with foreign tribes, developed distinct
dialects or languages.

But linguistic evidence alone need not be relied upon to prove that the
North American Indian was not nomadic.

Corroborative proof of the sedentary character of our Indian tribes is
to be found in t