FIG. 160.—Woman of Wichita tribe,
Pawnee Nation, Indian Territory, U.S.
b. The Indians of the Atlantic slope are divided into three great linguistic families: Algonquian-Iroquoian, Muskhogean-Choctaw, and Siouan or Dakota.
1. The Algonquians and Iroquoians occupy the “ethnographical province” which bears their name and extends over the east of Canada and the north-east of the United States, between the Mississippi and about the 36th degree of N. latitude. This province is characterised by a temperate climate, abundance of prairies, and broad water-ways; it affords facilities for the chase and the gathering of wild rice and tobacco; certain usages are common to all the tribes inhabiting it (tattooing, colouring the body, moccasins similar to those of the Athapascans, etc.).
The original home of the Algonquians was the region around Hudson’s Bay, where the Cree tribe, which speaks the purest Algonquian language, still exists. Leaving this region, they spread as far as the Atlantic, the Mississippi, and the Alleghany Mountains, driving back the Dakotas into the prairies of the right bank of the Mississippi. The Abnakis of Lower Canada, the Micmacs of Acadia and Newfoundland, the Leni-Lenapé of the Delaware, who fought so valiantly against the European immigrants; the Mohicans, idealised by Cooper; the warlike Shawnees, the Ojibwas or Chippewas (Fig. [30]), who, together with the Lenapé, are alone among the Red-skins in possessing a rudimentary writing; the Ottawas, the Black Feet, the Cheyennes, and so many other tribes besides belonged to this great Algonquian people. It has left traces of its existence in the “mounds” as well as in a great number of the geographical names of the region which it formerly occupied. It is estimated that at the present day there are not more than 95,000 Algonquians, of whom two-thirds inhabit Canada. The most numerous tribe is that of the Chippewas (31,000), while the “last” of the Mohicans were only 121 in the census of 1890. Among the Algonquians ought probably to be included a tribe which became extinct in 1827, that of the Beothucs of Newfoundland, whose affinities with other tribes have not yet been definitely established.[607]
At the time when the Algonquians held a large part of modern Canada and the United States, an isolated portion of their territory was peopled with Iroquoians around Lakes Erie and Ontario, as well as on the lower St. Lawrence. The Iroquoians, sprung from the same common stock as the Cherokis, the ancient mound-builders of the Ohio basin, have dwindled down to a few thousand families in the upper valley of the Tennessee (H. Hale). They are divided into Hurons (between Lakes Ontario and Huron) and Iroquois or Iroquoians properly so called. The latter formerly comprised five nations: Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas, united into a democratic confederacy by the famous chief Hiawatha, of whom Longfellow has sung. At a later date the Tuscaroras, who dwelt farther to the south-west in Virginia, were also admitted into the confederacy.[608]
The wars in which the Iroquoians have been engaged have singularly reduced their number; to-day there are only about 43,000, of whom 9000 are in Canada.
2. The Muskhogean group comprises several tribes: Apalachi, Chata-Choctaw, Chicasaws, Creeks or Muskhogis, who formerly dwelt between the lower Mississippi, the Atlantic, the Tennessee River, and the Gulf of Mexico. To these we must add the Seminoles who formerly occupied the Florida peninsula.[609] The habits of the Muskhogean tribes, of which Hernando de Soto drew so vivid a picture in 1540, were those of husbandmen somewhat advanced in civilisation; they had a hieroglyphic writing (Brinton), but were unacquainted with the use of metals, gold excepted. The southern portion of the United States which these tribes occupied is a region with a sub-tropical climate, favourable to the cultivation of the sugar-cane, maize, and tobacco. The ancient Muskhogis wore garments of special texture, and daubed their bodies like the Algonquians, but were unacquainted with tattooing. At the present day they have dwindled down to 25,500 individuals. Certain tribes, like the Yamasis, have completely disappeared; in 1886 there were only three Apalachi women left. We include among the Muskhogis the tribes who formerly lived in the lower valley of the Mississippi, and whose dialects have not been classified: the Natchez, idealised by Chateaubriand, a score of whom still dwell among the Creeks and Cherokis; the Atacapas, reduced in number to a dozen individuals, in the Calcasieu Pass (Louisiana), etc.
3. The Siouans or Dakotas (Figs. [158] and [159]) occupied at the time of the discovery of America the whole country extending to the west of the Mississippi, between the river Arkansas on the south and the Saskatchewan on the north, as far as the Rocky Mountains. For a long time this was believed to be their original home; but it has been found necessary to modify this opinion since the discovery by Hale and Gatschet of tribes speaking a Siouan tongue with archaic forms east of the Mississippi. These tribes are the Tutelos of Virginia, of whom but a score of individuals are left; the Biloxis of Louisiana, and the Winnebagos. It is now admitted that the original home of the Siouans was the Alleghany Mountains and the surrounding country; thence they were doubtless forced back by the Algonquians into the prairies to the west of the Mississippi, where they became buffalo-hunters.