Few discoveries respecting the distribution of languages are more interesting than one made by Mr. Hale, to the effect that the Umkwa, Kwaliokwa, and Tlatskanai dialects of a district so far south as the River Columbia, and the upper portion of the Umkwa river (further south still) were outlying members of the Athabaskan stock, a stock preeminently northern—not to say Arctic—in its main area.
Yet the dialects just named were shown by a subsequent discovery of Professor Turner's, to be only penultimate ramifications of their stock; inasmuch as further south and further south still, in California, New Mexico, Sonora, and even Chihuhua, as far south as 30° north latitude, Athabaskan forms of speech were to be found; the Navaho of Uta and New Mexico, the Jecorilla of New Mexico, and the Apatch of New Mexico, California, and Sonora, being Athabaskan. The Hoopah of California is also Athabaskan.
The first of the populations to the south of the Athabaskan area, who, lying on, or to the west of, the Rocky Mountains, are other than Algonkin, are—
V. The Kitunaha.—The Kitunaha, Cutani, Cootanie or Flatbow area is long rather than broad, and it follows the line of the Rocky Mountains between 52° and 48° north latitude. How definitely it is divided by the main ridge from that of the Blackfoots I am unable to say, but as a general rule, the Kutani lie west, the Blackfoots east; the former being Indians of New Caledonia and Oregon, the latter of the Hudson's Bay Territory and the United States. On the west the Kutani country is bounded by that of the Shushwap and Selish Atnas, on the north by the Sussee, Sikanni, and Nagail Athabaskans, on the south (I think) by some of the Upsaroka or Crow tribes. All these relations are remarkable, and so is the geographical position of the area. It is in a mountain-range; and, as such, in a district likely to be an ancient occupancy. The languages with which the Kutani lies in contact are referable to four different families—the Athabaskan, the Atna, the Algonkin, and the Sioux; the last two of which, the Blackfoot (Algonkin) and the Crow (Sioux), are both extreme forms, i. e. forms sufficiently unlike the other members of these respective groups to have had their true position long overlooked; forms, too, sufficiently peculiar to justify the philologue in raising them to the rank of separate divisions. It suffices, however, for the present to say, that the Kutani language is bounded by four tongues differing in respect to the class to which they belong and from each other, and different from the Kutani itself.
The Kutani, then, differs notably from the tongues with which it is in geographical contact; though, like all the languages of America, it has numerous miscellaneous affinities. In respect to its phonesis it agrees with the North Oregon languages. The similarity in name to the Loucheux, whom Richardson calls Kutshin, deserves notice. Upon the whole, few languages deserve attention more than the one under notice.
VI. The Atna Group.—West of the Kutanis and south of the Takulli Athabaskans lie the northernmost members of a great family which extends as far south as the Sahaptin frontier, the Sahaptin being a family of Southern, or American, Oregon. Such being the case, the great group now under notice came under the cognizance of the two American philologues, whose important labours have already been noticed, by whom it has been denominated Tsihaili-Selish. It contains the Shushwap, Selish, Skitsnish (or Cœur d'Alene) Piskwans, Nusdalum, Kawitchen, Skwali, Chechili, Kowelits, and Nsietshawus forms of speech.
In regard to the Atna I have a statement of my own to correct, or at any rate to modify. In a paper, read before the Ethnological Society, on the Languages of the Oregon Territory (Dec. 11, 1844), I pronounced that an Atna vocabulary found in Mackenzie's Travels, though different from the Atna of the Copper River, belonged to the same group. The group, however, to which the Atna of the Copper River belongs is the Athabaskan.
The Tsihaili-Selish languages reach the sea in the parts to the south of the mouth of Frazer's River, i. e. the parts opposite Vancouver's Island; perhaps they touch it further to the north also; perhaps, too, some of the Takulli forms of the speech further north still reach the sea. The current statements, however, are to the effect, that to the south of the parts opposite Sitka, and to the north of the parts opposite Vancouver's Island, the two families in question are separated from the Pacific by a narrow strip of separate languages—separate and but imperfectly known. These are, beginning from the north—
VII. The Haidah Group of Languages.—Spoken by the Skittegats, Massetts, Kumshahas, and Kyganie of Queen Charlotte's Islands and the Prince of Wales Archipelago. Its area lies immediately to that of the south of the so-called Kolush languages.