bodies, i.e., that they represent continuous areas, and that with some
exceptions the same color is not scattered here and there over the map
in small spots. Yet precisely this last state of things is what would be
expected had the tribes representing the families been nomadic to a
marked degree. If nomadic tribes occupied North America, instead of
spreading out each from a common center, as the colors show that the
tribes composing the several families actually did, they would have been
dispersed here and there over the whole face of the country. That they
are not so dispersed is considered proof that in the main they were
sedentary. It has been stated above that more or less extensive
migrations of some tribes over the country had taken place prior to
European occupancy. This fact is disclosed by a glance at the present
map. The great Athapascan family, for instance, occupying the larger
part of British America, is known from linguistic evidence to have sent
off colonies into Oregon (Wilopah, Tlatskanai, Coquille), California
(Smith River tribes, Kenesti or Wailakki tribes, Hupa), and Arizona and
New Mexico (Apache, Navajo). How long before European occupancy of this
country these migrations took place can not be told, but in the case of
most of them it was undoubtedly many years. By the test of language it
is seen that the great Siouan family, which we have come to look upon as
almost exclusively western, had one offshoot in Virginia (Tutelo),
another in North and South Carolina (Catawba), and a third in
Mississippi (Biloxi); and the Algonquian family, so important in the
early history of this country, while occupying a nearly continuous area
in the north and east, had yet secured a foothold, doubtless in very
recent times, in Wyoming and Colorado. These and other similar facts
sufficiently prove the power of individual tribes or gentes to sunder
relations with the great body of their kindred and to remove to distant
homes. Tested by linguistic evidence, such instances appear to be
exceptional, and the fact remains that in the great majority of cases