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Show n8 BASIS OP AMERICAN HISTORY [ 1800 advanced far on the road to civilization. ^ They are also cut up into a large number of tribes and bands, which speak mutually unintelligible dialects, but their manner of life as well as their physical features remain fairly uniform. The most important tribes of the northern branch are the Kutchin, Nahane, Slave, Taculli or Carriers, Chil-cotin, Yellow Knives, Hare, Dogrib, Chippewyan, and Sarcee. On the Pacific slope various small tribes in southern Oregon and the Hupa of California may be noted, while the Navajo and Apache, already mentioned, represent the southern extension of the stock. * The same general culture stretches south from the northern Athapascan territory over the high plateaus between the Rockies and the Coast Range, through interior British Columbia, where it includes several inland Salishan peoples, notably the Shuswap and Thompson^ Still farther south the Kootenay appear; and the important Shahaptian family, of which the Nez Perc6 and the Yakima are probably the best- known tribes, occupying a large part of eastern Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, must also be included. The Shahaptian stock is in intimate relation on the south with the great Shoshonean people. This latter family has an extensive distribution over Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, southern California, New Mexico, and Texas. The northern Shoshone must be regarded as belonging to the plateau type of British Columbia |