Original Habitats.— The question of the original habitats of the important aboriginal stocks is one of the most interesting in American ethnology and archaeology. The researches of Rink and Boas in particular seem to have demonstrated that the primitive home of the Eskimo was in the region west of Hudson Bay, whence they spread northward and west ward to Alaska, etc., and eastward (north and south) to. the Arctic islands, Greenland and Labrador. See Esxmos.
. The earliest habitat of the Athapascans was in northwestern Canada, to the westward of the home of the Eskimo. From there they migrated over the lake country, across the Rockies to the southward, leaving colonies along the Pacific to northern California, and sending out, through Arizona and New Mexico to the borders of the Nahuatl territory, the important branches of the Apaches and Navaho — the raids of the Apaches often reaching far into Mexico.
• The original habitat of the Algonkian stock was, as Brinton and Hale have assumed, °some where north of the Saint Lawrence and east of Lake Ontario ( while that of the Iroquoian lay °between the lower Saint Lawrence and Hudson The final result of the migrations and wars of these two stocks was to leave the Iro quois of the Ontario-Erie country entirely sur rounded by Algonkian tribes. From their primitive home the Algonkian sent out numerous branches west, south, southwest, etc., making the extent of territory covered by them very large, and bringing them into immediate contact with many other Indian tribes and with the white settlers over a vast area. The Iroquois (in the Cherokee and the kindred tribes of the south) had branches, which were so separated from their northern kin as to be long taken fot non-Iroquoian peoples.
The Muskhogean stock, according to Gat schet, have been • from time immemorial inhabit ants of the country between the Appalachian Mountains, the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi. The scene of their earliest development was in the neighborhood of the Mississippi, or possibly even beyond it.
The chief migrations of the Caddoan (Paw nee) peoples have taken place in historical times northward and southward from the Platte River, from which region they expelled in part the Siouan tribes, etc. If their own traditions are reliable, their primitive home lay to the south, on the Red River of Louisiana.
The primitive home of the Siouan stock (characteristic Plains Indians since the intro duction of the horse) was eastward in the region of the Carolinas. This fact has been revealed by the study of the Tutelo and Catawba languages belonging to this eastern area, and by inspection of the traditions of the various Siouan tribes. The main bodies of Siouan
migrants followed the Ohio and the Missouri far to the north and west ; the Mandans, As siniboins, etc., reaching to within the borders of Canada. Other minor bodies traveled to the southwest, their representatives still existing in the Biloxi, etc., of southeastern Mississippi. The Siouan tribes seem to have followed the buffalo in its retreat westward, and their migration from the Carolinas is of considerable sociologi cal interest. At one time their trans-MisAs sippian habitat included practically all the territory between the Arkansas and the Sas katchewan from the great river to mid-Montana, with the Winnebagoes jutting out on Lake Michigan. Their forays and trade-excursions led some of them from time to time across the Rocky Mountains.
The original habitat of the Shoshonean or Uto-Aztecan stock, which embraces the Ute, the Sonoran and the Aztecan (Nahuatl) peoples, and has representatives from the north of Idaho to the Isthmus of Panama, was probably some where in the northwestern section of the United States. The primitive home of the Shoshonean section was °somewhere between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Lakes,* and the tradi tions of the other two branches bring them from the far north, as compared with their present southern abode.
The Mayan stock, creators of the civiliza tion of Central America, according to their own traditions, came from somewhere to the north — the position of the Huastecan branch of this stock north of Vera Cruz suggests that the Mayan emigrants from the home-land skirted along the Gulf of Mexico from some region considerably to the north.
The Arawakan stock (including the natives of the Bahamas and the Antilles, except the intrusive Caribs) had an extension in South America comparable only to that of the Algon kians and Athapascans in the northern half of the continent — from the high Paraguay to the Goajiran Peninsula in Venezuela, and in its greatest expansion from the Xingu to the Amazon and Orinoco. Its primitive habitat was in some part of the Brazilian interior, probably between the Xitigii and the Paraguay, the gen eral trend of their migrations having been north ward. The Cariban stock, another very exten sive people, who at the time of Columbus' discovery were to be found in the smaller West Indian islands and the northern part of the con tinent from the Essiquibo in Guiana to about the Isthmus of Panama, came originally, as the presence of the Carib Bakairi on the Xingu indicates, from the high interior of Brazil, at the sources of the Xingii and Tapajos.