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
Du Pratz asserted that the Taensa and Chitimacha were kindred tribes of
the Na’htchi. A vocabulary of the Shetimasha, however, revealed to
Gallatin no traces of such affinity. He considered both to represent
distinct families, a conclusion subsequent investigations have
sustained.
In 1881 Mr. Gatschet visited the remnants of this tribe in Louisiana. He
found about fifty individuals, a portion of whom lived on Grand River,
but the larger part in Charenton, St. Mary’s Parish. The tribal
organization was abandoned in 1879 on the death of their chief.
CHUMASHAN FAMILY.
> Santa Barbara, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc., Lond., 85, 1856
(includes Santa Barbara, Santa Inez, San Luis Obispo languages).
Buschmann, Spuren der aztek. Sprache, 531, 535, 538, 602, 1859.
Latham, Opuscula, 351, 1860. Powell in Cont. N.A. Eth., III, 550, 567,
1877 (Kasuá, Santa Inez, Id. of Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara). Gatschet
in U.S. Geog. Surv. W. 100th M., VII, 419, 1879 (cites La Purísima,
Santa Inez, Santa Barbara, Kasuá, Mugu, Santa Cruz Id.).
X Santa Barbara, Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 156, 1877 (Santa Inez,
Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz Id., San Luis Obispo, San Antonio).
Derivation: From Chumash, the name of the Santa Rosa Islanders.
The several dialects of this family have long been known under the group
or family name, “Santa Barbara,” which seems first to have been used in
a comprehensive sense by Latham in 1856, who included under it three
languages, viz: Santa Barbara, Santa Inez, and San Luis Obispo. The term
has no special pertinence as a family designation, except from the fact
that the Santa Barbara Mission, around which one of the dialects of the
family was spoken, is perhaps more widely known than any of the others.
Nevertheless, as it is the family name first applied to the group and
has, moreover, passed into current use its claim to recognition would
not be questioned were it not a compound name. Under the rule adopted
the latter fact necessitates its rejection. As a suitable substitute the
term Chumashan is here adopted. Chumash is the name of the Santa Rosa
Islanders, who spoke a dialect of this stock, and is a term widely known
among the Indians of this family.
The Indians of this family lived in villages, the villages as a whole
apparently having no political connection, and hence there appears to
have been no appellation in use among them to designate themselves as a
whole people.
Dialects of this language were spoken at the Missions of San
Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Iñez, Purísima, and San Luis Obispo.
Kindred dialects were spoken also upon the Islands of Santa Rosa and
Santa Cruz, and also, probably, upon such other of the Santa Barbara
Islands as formerly were permanently inhabited.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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