Yellow Rock and Yellow Stone.

Established usage now writes it

Yellowstone.

[E] Minnetaree, one of the Siouan family of languages.


CHAPTER II.

INDIAN OCCUPANCY OF THE UPPER YELLOWSTONE.

It is a singular fact in the history of the Yellowstone National Park that no knowledge of that country seems to have been derived from the Indians. The explanation ordinarily advanced is that the Indians had a superstitious fear of the geyser regions and always avoided them. How far this theory is supported by the results of modern research is an interesting inquiry.

Three great families of Indians, the Siouan, the Algonquian, and the Shoshonean, originally occupied the country around the sources of the Yellowstone. Of these three families the following tribes are alone of interest in this connection: The Crows (Absaroka) of the Siouan family; the Blackfeet (Siksika) of the Algonquian family; and the Bannocks (Panai’hti), the Eastern Shoshones, and the Sheepeaters (Tukuarika) of the Shoshonean family.