Page:The American Indian.djvu/270

220 and all the territory between the Eskimo above, and Lakes Superior and Huron below, and eastward to the St. Lawrence, is the home of a culture whose material traits are comparable to those of the preceding area. In brief, these traits are the taking of caribou in pens; the snaring of game; the considerable use of small game and fish; the use of berry food; the weaving of rabbitskins; the birch canoe; the toboggan; the conical skin or bark-covered shelter; the absence of basketry and pottery; use of bark and wooden utensils. The tribes most distinctly of this culture are the Ojibway north of the Lakes, including the Saulteaux, the Wood Cree, the Montagnais, and the Naskapi.

Taking the above as the northern group, we find the main body falls into three large divisions:

1. The Iroquoian tribes (Huron, Wyandot, Erie, Susquehanna, and the Five Nations) extending from north to south and thus dividing the Algonkin tribes.

2. The Central Algonkin, west of the Iroquois: some Ojibway, the Ottawa, Menomini, Sauk and Fox, Potawatomi, Peoria, Illinois, Kickapoo, Miami, Piankashaw, Shawnee, also the Siouan Winnebago.

3. The Eastern Algonkin: the Abnaki group, and the Micmac (not to be distinguished from the northern border group noted above save by their feeble cultivation of maize), the New England tribes, and the Delaware.

While the Iroquoian tribes seem to have been predominant, their culture, as a whole, suggests a southern origin, thus disqualifying them for places in the type group. The Eastern tribes are not well known, many of them being extinct, but they also seem to have been strongly influenced by the Iroquois and by southern culture. We must, therefore, turn to the Central group for the type. Even here the data are far from adequate; for the Peoria, Illinois, Miami, and Piankashaw have almost faded away. Little is known of the Kickapoo and Ottawa, and no serious studies of the Shawnee are available. The latter, however, seem to belong with the transitional tribes of the Eastern group, if not actually to the Southeastern area. Our discussion, therefore, must be based