In the first place, the linguistic map, based as it is upon the earliest
evidence obtainable, itself offers conclusive proof, not only that the
Indian tribes were in the main sedentary at the time history first
records their position, but that they had been sedentary for a very long
period. In order that this may be made plain, it should be clearly
understood, as stated above, that each of the colors or patterns upon
the map indicates a distinct linguistic family. It will be noticed that
the colors representing the several families are usually in single
bodies, i.e., that they represent continuous areas, and that with some
exceptions the same color is not scattered here and there over the map
in small spots. Yet precisely this last state of things is what would be
expected had the tribes representing the families been nomadic to a
marked degree. If nomadic tribes occupied North America, instead of
spreading out each from a common center, as the colors show that the
tribes composing the several families actually did, they would have been
dispersed here and there over the whole face of the country. That they
are not so dispersed is considered proof that in the main they were
sedentary. It has been stated above that more or less extensive
migrations of some tribes over the country had taken place prior to
European occupancy. This fact is disclosed by a glance at the present
map. The great Athapascan family, for instance, occupying the larger
part of British America, is known from linguistic evidence to have sent
off colonies into Oregon (Wilopah, Tlatskanai, Coquille), California
(Smith River tribes, Kenesti or Wailakki tribes, Hupa), and Arizona and
New Mexico (Apache, Navajo). How long before European occupancy of this
country these migrations took place can not be told, but in the case of
most of them it was undoubtedly many years. By the test of language it
is seen that the great Siouan family, which we have come to look upon as
almost exclusively western, had one offshoot in Virginia (Tutelo),
another in North and South Carolina (Catawba), and a third in
Mississippi (Biloxi); and the Algonquian family, so important in the
early history of this country, while occupying a nearly continuous area
in the north and east, had yet secured a foothold, doubtless in very
recent times, in Wyoming and Colorado. These and other similar facts
sufficiently prove the power of individual tribes or gentes to sunder
relations with the great body of their kindred and to remove to distant
homes. Tested by linguistic evidence, such instances appear to be
exceptional, and the fact remains that in the great majority of cases
the tribes composing linguistic families occupy continuous areas, and
hence are and have been practically sedentary. Nor is the bond of a
common language, strong and enduring as that bond is usually thought to
be, entirely sufficient to explain the phenomenon here pointed out. When
small in number the linguistic tie would undoubtedly aid in binding
together the members of a tribe; but as the people speaking a common
language increase in number and come to have conflicting interests, the
linguistic tie has often proved to be an insufficient bond of union. In
the case of our Indian tribes feuds and internecine conflicts were
common between members of the same linguistic family. In fact, it is
probable that a very large number of the dialects into which Indian
languages are split originated as the result of internecine strife.
Factions, divided and separated from the parent body, by contact,
intermarriage, and incorporation with foreign tribes, developed distinct
dialects or languages.
But linguistic evidence alone need not be relied upon to prove that the
North American Indian was not nomadic.
Corroborative proof of the sedentary character of our Indian tribes is
to be found in the curious form of kinship system, with mother-right as
its chief factor, which prevails. This, as has been pointed out in
another place, is not adapted to the necessities of nomadic tribes,
which need to be governed by a patriarchal system, and, as well, to be
possessed of flocks and herds.
There is also an abundance of historical evidence to show that, when
first discovered by Europeans, the Indians of the eastern United States
were found living in fixed habitations. This does not necessarily imply
that the entire year was spent in one place. Agriculture not being
practiced to an extent sufficient to supply the Indian with full
subsistence, he was compelled to make occasional changes from his
permanent home to the more or less distant waters and forests to procure
supplies of food. When furnished with food and skins for clothing, the
hunting parties returned to the village which constituted their true
home. At longer periods, for several reasons--among which probably the
chief were the hostility of stronger tribes, the failure of the fuel
supply near the village, and the compulsion exercised by the ever lively
superstitious fancies of the Indians--the villages were abandoned and
new ones formed to constitute new homes, new focal points from which to
set out on their annual hunts and to which to return when these were
completed. The tribes of the eastern United States had fixed and
definitely bounded habitats, and their wanderings were in the nature of
temporary excursions to established points resorted to from time
immemorial. As, however, they had not yet entered completely into the
agricultural condition, to which they were fast progressing from the
hunter state, they may be said to have been nomadic to a very limited
extent. The method of life thus sketched was substantially the one which
the Indians were found practicing throughout the eastern part of the
United States, as also, though to a less degree, in the Pacific States.
Upon the Pacific coast proper the tribes were even more sedentary than
upon the Atlantic, as the mild climate and the great abundance and
permanent supply of fish and shellfish left no cause for a seasonal
change of abode.
When, however, the interior portions of the country were first visited
by Europeans, a different state of affairs was found to prevail. There
the acquisition of the horse and the possession of firearms had wrought
very great changes in aboriginal habits. The acquisition of the former
enabled the Indian of the treeless plains to travel distances with ease
and celerity which before were practically impossible, and the
possession of firearms stimulated tribal aggressiveness to the utmost
pitch. Firearms were everywhere doubly effective in producing changes in
tribal habitats, since the somewhat gradual introduction of trade placed
these deadly weapons in the hands of some tribes, and of whole congeries
of tribes, long before others could obtain them. Thus the general state
of tribal equilibrium which had before prevailed was rudely disturbed.
Tribal warfare, which hitherto had been attended with inconsiderable
loss of life and slight territorial changes, was now made terribly
destructive, and the territorial possessions of whole groups of tribes
were augmented at the expense of those less fortunate. The horse made
wanderers of many tribes which there is sufficient evidence to show were
formerly nearly sedentary. Firearms enforced migration and caused
wholesale changes in the habitats of tribes, which, in the natural order
of events, it would have taken many centuries to produce. The changes
resulting from these combined agencies, great as they were, are,
however, slight in comparison with the tremendous effects of the
wholesale occupancy of Indian territory by Europeans. As the acquisition
of territory by the settlers went on, a wave of migration from east to
west was inaugurated which affected tribes far remote from the point of
disturbance, ever forcing them within narrower and narrower bounds, and,
as time went on, producing greater and greater changes throughout the
entire country.
So much of the radical change in tribal habitats as took place in the
area remote from European settlements, mainly west of the Mississippi,
is chiefly unrecorded, save imperfectly in Indian tradition, and is
chiefly to be inferred from linguistic evidence and from the few facts
in our possession. As, however, the most important of these changes
occurred after, and as a result of, European occupancy, they are noted
in history, and thus the map really gives a better idea of the pristine
or prehistoric habitat of the tribes than at first might be thought
possible.
Before speaking of the method of establishing the boundary lines between
the linguistic families, as they appear upon the map, the nature of the
Indian claim to land and the manner and extent of its occupation should
be clearly set forth.