Part 27 (1/2)

Derivation: From the Klamath word _plaikni_, signifying mountaineers or uplanders (Gatschet).

In two places[73] Hale uses the terms Palaihnih and Palaiks interchangeably, but inasmuch as on page 569, in his formal table of linguistic families and languages, he calls the family Palaihnih, this is given preference over the shorter form of the name.

[Footnote 73: U.S. Expl. Expd., 1846, vol. 6, pp. 199, 218.]

Though here cla.s.sed as a distinct family, the status of the Pit River dialects can not be considered to be finally settled. Powers speaks of the language as hopelessly consonantal, harsh, and sesquipedalian, * * * utterly unlike the sweet and simple languages of the Sacramento.

He adds that the personal p.r.o.nouns show it to be a true Digger Indian tongue. Recent investigations by Mr. Gatschet lead him, however, to believe that ultimately it will be found to be linguistically related to the Sastean languages.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

The family was located by Hale to the southeast of the Lutuami (Klamath). They chiefly occupied the area drained by the Pit River in extreme northeastern California. Some of the tribe were removed to Round Valley Reservation, California.

PRINc.i.p.aL TRIBES.

Powers, who has made a special study of the tribe, recognizes the following princ.i.p.al tribal divisions:[74]

Achomwi.

Atuamih.

Chumwa.

Estakewach.

Hantewa.

Humwhi.

Ilmwi.

Pakamalli?

[Footnote 74: Cont. N.A. Eth. vol. 3, p. 267.]

PIMAN FAMILY.

= Pima, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 898, 1850 (cites three languages from the Mithridates, viz, Pima proper, Opata, Eudeve). Turner in Pac. R.

R. Rep., III, pt. 3, 55, 1856 (Pima proper). Latham in Trans.

Philolog. Soc. Lond., 92, 1856 (contains Pima proper, Opata, Eudeve, Papagos). Latham, Opuscula, 356, 1860. Latham, El. Comp. Phil., 427, 1862 (includes Pima proper, Opata, Eudeve, Papago, Ibequi, Hiaqui, Tubar, Tarahumara, Cora). Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 156, 1877 (includes Pima, Nvome, Ppago). Gatschet in Beach, Ind. Misc., 429, 1877 (defines area and gives habitat).

Latham used the term Pima in 1850, citing under it three dialects or languages. Subsequently, in 1856, he used the same term for one of the five divisions into which he separates the languages of Sonora and Sinaloa.

The same year Turner gave a brief account of Pima as a distinct language, his remarks applying mainly to Pima proper of the Gila River, Arizona. This tribe had been visited by Emory and Johnston and also described by Bartlett. Turner refers to a short vocabulary in the Mithridates, another of Dr. Coulters in Royal Geological Society Journal, vol. XI, 1841, and a third by Parry in Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, vol. III, 1853. The short vocabulary he himself published was collected by Lieut. Whipple.

Only a small portion of the territory occupied by this family is included within the United States, the greater portion being in Mexico where it extends to the Gulf of California. The family is represented in the United States by three tribes, Pima alta, Sobaipuri, and Papago. The former have lived for at least two centuries with the Maricopa on the Gila River about 160 miles from the mouth. The Sobaipuri occupied the Santa Cruz and San Pedro Rivers, tributaries of the Gila, but are no longer known. The Papago territory is much more extensive and extends to the south across the border. In recent times the two tribes have been separated, but the Pima territory as shown upon the map was formerly continuous to the Gila River.

According to Buschmann, Gatschet, Brinton, and others the Pima language is a northern branch of the Nahuatl, but this relations.h.i.+p has yet to be demonstrated.[75]

[Footnote 75: Buschmann, Die Pima-Sprache und die Sprache der Koloschen, pp. 321-432.]