Algonquian Family

Algonquian Family (adapted from the name of the Algonkin tribe ). A linguistic stock which formerly occupied a more extended area than any other in North America. Their territory reached from the east shore of Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains and front Churchill River to Pamlico Sound. The east parts of this territory were separated by an area occupied by Iroquoian tribes. On the east Algonquian tribes skirted the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Neuse River; on the south they touched on the territories of the eastern Siouan, southern Iroquoian, and the Muskhogean families; on the west they bordered on the Siouan area; on the northwest on the Kitunahan and Athapascan; in Labrador they came into contact with the Eskimo; in Newfound land they surrounded on three sides the Beothuk.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho  moved from the main body and drifted out into the plains.ome of the extreme western tribes frequently practiced tree or scaffold burial. The bodies of the chiefs of the Powhatan confederacy were stripped of the flesh and the skeletons were placed on scaffolds in a charnel house. The Ottawa usually placed the body for a short time on a scaffold near the grave previous to burial. The Shawnee, and possibly one or more of the southern Illinois tribes, were accustomed to bury their dead in box-shaped sepulchers made of undressed straw slabs. The Nanticoke, and some of the western tribes, after-temporary burial in the ground or exposure on scaffolds, removed the flesh and re-interred the skeletons.