Page:Indian Languages of the Pacific States and Territories.djvu/19

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Indian Languages of the Pacific

Yuma.—The Indians of the Yuma stock are scattered along the borders of the Lower Colorado and its affluents, the Gila river and the Bill Williams Fork. Their name is derived from one of the tribes—the Yumas—whom their neighbors frequently call Cuchans or Ko-u-tchans. Some dialects, as the Mohave, possess a large number of sounds or phonetic elements, the English th amongst them, and are almost entirely built up of syllables, which contain but one consonant followed by a vowel. The verb possesses a plural form. At present we know of about seven dialects:—Mohave (Spanish Mojave), on Mohave river and on Colorado River Reservation; Hualapai, on Colorado River Agency; Maricopa, formerly Cocomaricopa, on Pima Reservation, Middle Gila river; Tonto, Tonto-Apaches or Gohun, on Gila river and north of it; Cocopa, near Fort Yuma and south of it; Cuchan or Yuma, on Colorado river; their former seats were around Fort Yuma; Diegeño and Comoyei, around San Diego, along the Coast, on New river, etc.

Scattered tribes are the Cosinos or Casninos, and the Yavipais or Yampais, east of the Colorado river. The term opa, composing several of these tribal names, is taken from the Yuma, and means man; the definite article -tch joined to it forms the word épach or Apache, "man, men, people."

Pima.—Dialects of this stock are spoken on the middle course of the Gila river, and south of it on the elevated plains of Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora, (Pimería alta, Pimería bája). The Pima does not extend into California, unless the extinct, historical Cajuenches, mentioned in Mexican annals, spoke one of the Pima (or Pijmo, Pimo) dialects. Pima, on Pima Reserve, Gila river, a sonorous, root-duplicating idiom; Névome, a dialect probably spoken in Sonora, of which we possess a reliable Spanish grammar, published in Shea's Linguistics; Pápago, on Pápago Reserve in south-western Arizona.

Santa Barbara.—We are not cognizant of any national name given to the race of Indians who spoke the intricate dialects of this language-family. Its northern dialects differ as much from the southern as Minitaree does from Santee-Dakota, or Scandinavian from the dialects of southern Germany.

The southern dialects are:—Santa Inez, near Santa Inez Mission; liturgic specimens, translations of parts of catechisms, etc., of this dialect, and of that of Santa Barbara Mission, were forwarded to the Smithsonian Institution by Mr. Alex. S. Taylor of Santa Barbara City; Santa Barbara, around Santa Barbara Mission, closely related to Kasuá or Kashwáh, Spanish Cieneguita, three miles from Santa Barbara Mission;