The Natural History of the Varieties of Man

by R. G. Latham

Conterminous with the Pawnees are the Paducas. Paduca is a name given to a division of the Indians, but imperfectly known, and concerning which the information found in Prichard seems to be chiefly from Pike. It is the name given, collectively, to those tribes who, on the almost unexplored parts about the head waters of the River Platte, succeed the Sioux on the south, and the Pawnees on the west. That they are conterminous with this last-named family is inferred from the name; Paduca, being no native designation, but the one given by the Pawnees.

As great extension is now given to the tribes represented by those of the parts in question, the word will be used as a general name of a class.

The most important fact, however, connected with the Paducas, is their distribution, or the configuration of the area which they occupy. The inland projection of the Gulf of Mexico so narrows the southern part of North America, that the phenomenon of a family extending, like the Eskimo and Athabaskans, across the continent, may now be expected.

Farthermore, a family thus spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific, would be of greater ethnological significance than even the similarly extended Athabaskans and Eskimo; since from its central position (central in respect to its north and south relations) it would disconnect the northern and southern populations.

Still more remarkable would be the distribution if the parts thus separated geographically, were also separated by marked contrasts in the way of language, manners, or civilization.

Now all this is the case with the great Paduca area. Spreading from the Pacific to the Atlantic, it has to the north developments like those of the Oregon and the valley of the Mississippi: to the south those of Mexico, Guatimala, and Yucatan.

The physical geography of the northern part of the Paduca area is as remarkable as is its ethnology; since it is a table-land from which four great rivers rise, to run their course in four opposite directions. There, within a small distance of each other, are the sources of the Saptin, a feeder of the Columbia running in a north-westernly direction, of the Colorado running south-west, of the Yellow-Stone branch of the Missouri, and of the Rio del Norte of Texas. This latter running in an elevated narrow valley, from about 41° N. L., through the whole of New Mexico, is preeminently the river of the Cumanch tribes; tribes of which the exact east and west direction is not ascertained, but of which the north and south area is one of the longest in America.

PADUCAS.

Direction of the Paduca area.—Oblique; i.e. from N.W. to S.E., or vice versâ.

Longitudinal Extension.—From the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico; from the water-system of the River Columbia to that of the River Sabine; from north of 45° N.L. to south of 25° S.L.