Page:The American Indian.djvu/354

296 observable resemblance of Athapascan to the languages of the adjoining Pacific Coast is a strong argument in favor of a northern cradle land.

Of almost equal importance are the Algonquian, Siouan, and Shoshonean-Nahuatl problems. The Algonquian and Siouan stocks have somewhat similar distributions, a large compact group with a few outlying detached fragments. In the former the detached Arapaho and Blackfoot speak very widely divergent Algonquian languages and if we admit Sapir's identification of Wishoskan (Wiyot) and Weitspekan (Yurok), we have representatives still farther removed geographically and correspondingly divergent. The Cheyenne appear somewhat less divergent than the Arapaho but we have historical reasons for believing their separation from the main body to be recent. On general grounds, it has been proposed that the ancestral home of the Siouan stock was on the Atlantic Coast, where representatives were found, but it appears that the Biloxi of the Gulf Coast are nearer the central linguistic types than those farther east. We see here a tendency for the outlying groups to be more divergent from the main body than those nearer, a relation favoring the view that these detached groups represent stragglers, but, whether laggards or true wanderers, is difficult to decide. In the author's opinion the probabilities favor the latter. Reasoning from the marginal phenomenon of faunistic distribution, it has often been assumed that the very small stocks on the coast belts represent the survivals of the more primitive groups. This view seems to have some justification, but it has not yet been demonstrated that these stocks are the more archaic forms of language. Hence, this interpretation so far as it applies to language, must be regarded with caution. • 2;font-size:smaller;