The Sayúsklan language has usually been assumed to be distinct from all others, and the comments of Latham and others all tend in this direction. Mr. Gatschet, as above quoted, finally classed it as a distinct stock, at the same time finding certain strong coincidences with the Yakonan family. Recently Mr. Dorsey has collected extensive vocabularies of the Yakonan, Sayúskla, and Lower Umpqua languages and finds unquestioned evidence of relationship.
[GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.]
The family consists of four primary divisions or tribes: Yakwina, Alsea, Siuslaw, and Ku-itc or Lower Umpqua. Each one of these comprised many villages, which were stretched along the western part of Oregon on the rivers flowing into the Pacific, from the Yaquina on the north down to and including the Umpqua River.
[TRIBES.]
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Alsea (on Alseya River). Yakwĭ´na. Kuitc. Siuslaw. |
Population.—The U.S. Census Bulletin for 1890 mentions thirty-one tribes as resident on the Siletz Reservation with a combined population of 571. How many Yakwina are among this number is not known. The breaking down of tribal distinctions by reason of the extensive intermarriage of the several tribes is given as the reason for the failure to give a census by tribes.
[YANAN FAMILY.]
= Nó-zi, Powers in Cont. N.A. Eth., III, 275, 1877 (or No-si; mention of tribe; gives numerals and states they are different from any he has found in California).
= Noces, Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 160, March, 1877 (or Nozes; merely mentioned under Meidoo family).
Derivation: Yana means “people” in the Yanan language.