Indian Linguistic Families of America, North of Mexico: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 1-142Powell, John Wesley
History
Indian Linguistic Families of America, North of Mexico: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 1-142
Powell, John Wesley
Indians of North America -- Languages; Indians of North America -- Languages -- Bibliography
The Siuslaw used to inhabit villages on the Siuslaw River, Oregon. There
may be a few pure Siuslaw on the Siletz Reservation, but Mr. Dorsey did
not see any of them. They are mentioned by Drew,[113] who includes them
among the “Kat-la-wot-sett” bands. At that time, they were still on the
Siuslaw River. The Ku-itc or Lower Umpqua villages were on both sides of
the lower part of Umpqua River, Oregon, from its mouth upward for about
30 miles. Above them were the Upper Umpqua villages, of the Athapascan
stock. A few members of the Ku-itc still reside on the Siletz
Reservation, Oregon.
[Footnote 113: U.S. Ind. Aff. Rept., 1857, p. 359.]
This is a family based by Hale upon a single tribe, numbering six or
seven hundred, who live on the coast, north of the Nsietshawus, from
whom they differ merely in language. Hale calls the tribe Iakon or
Yakones or Southern Killamuks.
The Sayúsklan language has usually been assumed to be distinct from all
others, and the comments of Latham and others all tend in this
direction. Mr. Gatschet, as above quoted, finally classed it as a
distinct stock, at the same time finding certain strong coincidences
with the Yakonan family. Recently Mr. Dorsey has collected extensive
vocabularies of the Yakonan, Sayúskla, and Lower Umpqua languages and
finds unquestioned evidence of relationship.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.
The family consists of four primary divisions or tribes: Yakwina, Alsea,
Siuslaw, and Ku-itc or Lower Umpqua. Each one of these comprised many
villages, which were stretched along the western part of Oregon on the
rivers flowing into the Pacific, from the Yaquina on the north down to
and including the Umpqua River.
TRIBES.
Alsea (on Alseya River).
Yakwĭ´na.
Kuitc.
Siuslaw.
_Population._--The U.S. Census Bulletin for 1890 mentions thirty-one
tribes as resident on the Siletz Reservation with a combined population
of 571. How many Yakwina are among this number is not known. The
breaking down of tribal distinctions by reason of the extensive
intermarriage of the several tribes is given as the reason for the
failure to give a census by tribes.
YANAN FAMILY.
= Nó-zi, Powers in Cont. N.A. Eth., III, 275, 1877 (or No-si; mention
of tribe; gives numerals and states they are different from any he has
found in California).
= Noces, Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 160, March, 1877 (or Nozes;
merely mentioned under Meidoo family).
Derivation: Yana means “people” in the Yanan language.
In 1880 Powell collected a short vocabulary from this tribe, which is
chiefly known to the settlers by the name Noje or Nozi. Judged by this
vocabulary the language seemed to be distinct from any other. More
recently, in 1884, Mr. Curtin visited the remnants of the tribe,
consisting of thirty-five individuals, and obtained an extensive
collection of words, the study of which seems to confirm the impression
of the isolated position of the language as regards other American
tongues.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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