Athapascan, -paskan, a. and n.
(æθəˈpæskən)
Also -bascan, -baskan, † -pasca.
[f. Cree Athap-askaw, lit. ‘grass or reeds here and there’ (Webster) + -an.]
A. adj. Of or pertaining to a widely spread people of North American Indians or their language.
| [1776 Cumberland House Jrnl. 27 June (Hudson Bay Rec. Soc., 1951) I. 60 He says that he supposed there were an hundred Canoes of them, the chiefest part A 'Thopuskow Indians.] 1846 J. Scouler in Edin. New Philos. Jrnl. XLI. 171 An inspection of the vocabularies of the languages spoken on the north-west coast, will aid us in defining the limits of the Athabascan family. 1877 L. H. Morgan Ancient Soc. i. i. 10 It leaves in the Upper Status of Savagery the Athapascan tribes of the Hudson's Bay Territory. 1915 R. H. Lowie in Amer. Anthrop. XVII. 239 All the Siouan, or all the Athabaskan, or all the Southwestern systems. 1933 Bloomfield Language iv. 72 The Athabascan family covers all but the coastal fringe of northwestern Canada [etc.]. |
B. n.
1. A member of this people.
| 1846 J. Scouler in Edin. New Philos. Jrnl. XLI. 170 To the west of the Rocky Mountains, the Athabascans, under the names of Tacullies or Carriers, occupy the country called New Caledonia. 1851 R. G. Latham Ethnol. Brit. Colonies vi. 257 To separate, not only Caribs from Algonkins, or Peruvians from Athabascans, but Peruvians from Caribs [etc.]. 1871 L. H. Morgan Syst. of Consanguinity v. 231 The Athapascans depend for subsistence upon fish and game. 1877 Encycl. Brit. VI. 448/1 The still more important myth of the north-west Athapascas. 1910 Ibid. I. 814/2 The Athapascan covered all north-western Canada with his open and portable birch-bark canoe. 1938 R. H. Lowie Hist. Ethnol. Theory viii. 121 The Canadian Athabaskans are introduced as ‘vigorous, but poorly endowed’. |
2. The language of this people.
| 1889 in Cent. Dict. (s.v. Athabaskan). 1932 A. Huxley Brave New World vi. 120 Extinct languages, such as Zuñi and Spanish and Athapascan. 1933 Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc. XLVIII. 620 In Athabascan..the idea ‘to carry’ is expressed by different verbs according to whether the load is light or heavy. 1965 Canad. Jrnl. Linguistics Spring 78 Languages of sure affiliation, e.g. Sarcee (Athapaskan). |