Page:Firemaking Apparatus in the U.S. National Museum.djvu/12

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Moquelumnian stocks. In fact, it has a close affinity in appearance to those of the very near Athapascan (Hupa, etc.) stock. It is a matter of very great interest to compare with this a stick from the Mackenzie River. (See Fig. 28.) The resemblance is striking; it is as though one found a word of familiar sound and import in an unexpected place. The related tribes of the Indians dwelling on the Mackenzie have a wider range than the distance between the localities whence the respective sticks came; in fact, the Athapascans range about 50 degrees in latitude and the southern colonies of this great family are only about 250 miles southeast of the Washoans, while, as has been stated, the Hupas are quite near.

It would be presumptuous to say at present that this tool is a remnant of the influence of the Athapascan wave that swept along the Great Interior Basin, leaving groups here and there in California and other parts to mark its progress, but there is more to its credit than a coincidence of form and function.

The museum is in possession of a complete collection of fire-making material from the tribes of the Shoshouian stock. They were collected by Maj. J. W. Powell. The native name for the Ute fire set is whu-tu ni-weap. While the lower member of the set—the hearth—differs among the several tribes in point of material, shape, etc., the spliced drill is characteristic of the whole stock. It has never been noticed outside of the southern part of the Great Interior Basin but in one instance—among the