The Indians of New England, the lower Hudson region, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, and Virginia, formed many different tribes, but they all spoke
languages of one family. These tribes are called Algonkins. Indians
speaking languages belonging to one stock are generally related in blood.
Besides the area already named, Algonkin tribes occupied New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, a part of Canada, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and
other districts farther west. The Blackfeet, who were Algonkins, lived
close to the Rocky Mountains. So you see that one linguistic family may
occupy a great area. On the other hand, sometimes a single tribe, small in
numbers and occupying only a little space, may have a language entirely
peculiar. Such a tribe would stand quite alone and would be considered as
unrelated to any other. Its language would have to be considered as a
distinct family or stock.
A few years ago Major Powell published a map of America north of Mexico,
to show the distribution of the Indian language families at the time of
the white settlement of this country. In it he represented the areas of
fifty-eight different families or stocks. Some of these families, like the
Algonquian and Athapascan, occupied great districts and contained many
languages; others, like the Zuñian, took up only a few square miles of
space and contained a single tribe. At the front of this book is a little
map partly copied from that of Major Powell. The large areas are nearly as
he gave them; many smaller areas of his map are omitted, as we shall not
speak of them. The Indians of the Pueblos speak languages of at least four
stocks, which Major Powell indicates. We have covered the whole Pueblo
district with one color patch. We have grouped the many Californian tribes
into one: so, too, with the tribes of the Northwest Coast. There are many
widely differing languages spoken in each of these two regions. This map
will show you where the Indians of whom we shall speak lived.
Many persons seem to think that the Indian was a perpetual rover,—always
hunting, fishing, and making war,—with no settled villages. This is a
great mistake: most tribes knew and practiced some agriculture. Most of
them had settled villages, wherein they spent much of their time. Sad
indeed would it have been for the early settlers of New England, if their
Indian neighbors had not had supplies of food stored away—the result of
their industry in the fields.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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