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Show i9oo] CLASSIFICATION OP INDIANS diverged into southern California and the pueblo region of the southwest. Many competent authorities regard the Aztec or Nahua as a branch of this family; and if so, the movement may have been primarily northward with a subsequent return. While these great movements had doubtless been in progress for many centuries, and were going on at the time of the discovery, the evidence is in favor of relative fixity of residence. The Indians' were not Homadic, but occupied well- defined areas. witETsparsely settled territories between the groups. The number of the aborigines has been absurdly over- estimated. 1 Clearly, when the whites first appeared the population was very small in proportion to the enormous territory which it occupied. The r density of the population varied greatly with the character of the country and the food supply; and inferences with regard to the peopling of untravelled parts of the continent, from observations on the regions first visited by Europeans, are extremely dangerous. Compilations of figures from the statements of early writers would indicate a population of somewhat under two hundred thousand for the territory east of the Mississippi, at the time of the discovery. The Pacific coast also undoubtedly sup- ' Mattery, " The Former and Present Number of Our Indians" ( Am. Assoc. Advancement of^ Science, Proceedings, for 1877), p. 340; Powell. " Indian Linguistic Families " ( Bureau of Bthnology, Seventh Annual Report, 33). |