Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/212

208 were the ancestors of some of the Indian tribes of history. What those tribes were is gradually being unraveled.

7. The greatest number of the aboriginal language stocks were located along the Pacific coast, say in California, and along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in the southeast; the interior of the continent being occupied thinly by only three or four stock tongues, these being Athapascan, Shoshonean, Algonquian and Siouan. The Kiowa, who

also were in this central area, are thought by some to be an independent stock, but by others related to the Comanches, and hence may, for our present purpose, be classed with the Comanches in the Shoshonean family. The Pawnee, or Caddoan, family was feebly represented in the interior of the continent aside from their main habitat at the gulf coast and in Texas; but the Iroquois shared with the other wide-spread families in the possession of the interior. These, however, appear to have linguistic alliances with the Cherokees and more distantly with the