A Preliminary View of Hydronymic Districts in Northern Athabaskan Prehistory

Abstract

Center Stream drainages and stream names have served as territorial markers and cardinal lines in the Northern Athabaskan cognitive mapping system. I have made a preliminary grouping of seven “hydronymic districts” for 31 Northern Athabaskan languages and dialects based upon patterned shifts in the stems in placenames meaning ‘course of stream’. When expanding into new territory, Athabaskans generally have continued to share boundaries with other Athabaskans. The Athabaskan hydronymic districts reflect alternating choices of solidarity or division within the larger network of languages. The geographical distribution of the hydronyms, combined with etymological analysis, offer some indications of directionality of movement and seriation of innovations during a series of expansions from an Athabaskan nucleus.