Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/52

 16 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. that of the Friendly Village, situated near the source of the river and ahout ninety miles from its mouth. All the other tribes along the route of Mackenzie, from the Lake Athapasca, or " of the Hills," to the sources of Salmon River, belong to the Athapasca family. The southern point which he reached on the Tacoutche Tesse, is on the boundary line between the Athapascas and the Atuahs, another inland tribe which extends thence southwardly. The chain of mountains nearest to the Pacific is a natural limit, which separates the inland tribes from those on the shores of that ocean. But nature had erected no such barrier be- tween the Eskimaux, who inhabit the seacoasts of the Arctic seas, and their southern neighbours, the Athapascas. They are in a perpetual state of warfare ; but neither covets the territory occupied by the other. The deeply rooted and ir- reconcilable habits of the two nations, derived indeed from their respective geographical positions, have rendered the boundary between them as permanent, as if it had been marked out by nature. Athapascas. If from the mouth of the Churchill or Missinipi* River, which empties into Hudson's Bay, in latitude 59° -60°, a line be drawn, ascending that river to its source, where it is known by the name of Beaver River (latitude about 54°), thence along the ridge, which separates the north branch of the River Sas- kachewan from those of the Athapasca, or Elk River, to the Rocky Mountains, and thence westwardly till within about one hundred miles of the Pacific Ocean in latitude 52° 30' ; all the inland tribes, north of that line, and surrounded, on all the other sides, from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific, by the narrow belt inhabited by the Eskimaux and the other maritime tribes last Algonkin denominations, the first derived from nipi, water; the last from sipi, river. Missi never means " father," but, in several dialects, " all, whole." In Algonkin and Knistinaux, missi ackki and messe aski, "the whole earth, the world," from achki, aski, earth, (Mackenzie.) In Abenaki, messisi, "all, whole;" French tout, (Rasle.) In Delaware, me.sitsr.hcye.n, "wholly," (Zeisberger). I think therefore the proper meaning of Missinipi and Mississipi, to be respectively, " the whole witter," and " the whole river." Both designations are equally appro- priate. Rivers united form the Mississipi. The Missinipi receives and collects the waters of a multitude of ponds and lakes.
 * Missinipi, not to be confounded with the Mississipi. Both are