Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/51

 SECT. I.] TRIBES NORTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 15 that coast, that a greater diversity of languages is found amongst them than had been presumed by earlier travellers.* The language of the Wakash Indians, who inhabit the island on which Nootka Sound is situated (49° north latitude), is the one in that quarter, which, by various vocabularies, is best known to us. The appended specimen is extracted from the Narrative of J. R. Jewitt, who was among these Indians from 1803 to 1806. That of the Koluschen was taken by the Russian Davidoff. We have added the few words given by Mackenzie, of the language of the Friendly Village near the sources of Salmon River in 53° of north latitude, some of that of the inhabitants of the Straits of Fuca, taken from the Spanish Voyage of the " Sutil y Mexicana," and a short vocabulary of those on Queen Charlotte's Islands, lately sup- plied by the Hon. William Sturgis, of Boston. These languages appear to belong to distinct families. But those several tribes have been introduced here, principally in reference to their geographical situation.! Bounded on the east by a range of mountains, which may be traced southward- ly to California, and which, running parallel to the coast, no where recedes far from it, those seashore tribes do not extend, so far as has been ascertained, farther inland than the sources of the short rivers which empty in that quarter into the sea. They, like the Eskimaux, form a belt of about one hundred miles in breadth, which separates the Inland Indians from the seashore. We at least know with certainty, by Harmon's and Mackenzie's accounts, that the inland Athapascas extend westwardly within that distance of the Pacific Ocean. Sir Alexander Mackenzie, in his voyage to the Pacific, after having descended the Tacoutche Tesse, or Fraser's River, which he mistook for the Columbia, as low down as 52° 30' of north latitude, ascending it again about one hundred miles, and then steering his course by land westwardly, across the chain of mountains last mentioned, arrived at the sources of Salmon River. Descending that short stream to its mouth in Fitzhugh's Sound, he reached the ocean in latitude 52° 20'. He could not collect a vocabulary of the language of the in- habitants of the seacoast, but represents it as differing from f It is also proper to observe, that though placed on that account under this head, it is without any reference to the unsettled question re- specting the boundary between the United States and Great Britain west of the Rocky Mountains.
 * See Appendix, — Note by the Publishing Committee.