SOUTHERN ATHABASKANS.
Area.—A narrow strip at the mouth of the river Columbia, and along the sea-coast to the river Umkwa.
Divisions.—1. Kwalioqwa. 2. Tlatskanai. 3. Umkwa.
1. The Kwalioqwa, north of the river Columbia, from which, and from the Tlatskanai, they are separated by the Tshinúks. Number, about 100.
2. The Tlatskanai, south of the river Columbia, from which, and from the Kwalioqwa, they are separated by the Tshinúks. Number, about 100.
3. The Umkwa, occupying the upper part of the river so-called, about lat. 43°. Number, about 400.
The first vocabulary of this section (one of the Umkwa language) was collected by Mr. Tolmie. The notice, however, of its affinities with the Tlatskanai and Kwalioqwa, and the more important discovery of its Athabaskan character, is one of many valuable additions made to Ethnographical Philology by Mr. Hales. I consider, for my own part, that the following table[108] justifies his classification.
We now come to a series of languages which, like the Kolúch, and unlike the Athabaskan and Eskimo, have no great extension from west to east, and which are spoken on the western side of Rocky Mountains only. Hence we get a great geographical line of demarcation; whilst the river systems with which we deal are those of Frazer's River and the Columbia, rather than of the Peace, the M'Kenzie, the Saskatchewan, and the Missinissi rivers.
West of the Rocky Mountains, the ethnological affinities run from north to south (or vertically) until we reach the area of the great Paduca family; one, in respect to its direction and distribution, of the most remarkable in America.