Chapter I: Linguistic Groups of the Gulf States

In the history of the Creeks, and in their legends of migration, many references occur to the tribes around them, with whom they came in contact. These contacts were chiefly of a hostile character, for the normal state of barbaric tribes is to live in almost permanent mutual conflicts. What follows is an attempt to enumerate and sketch them, the sketch to be of a prevalently topographic nature. We are not thoroughly acquainted with the racial or anthropological peculiarities of the nations surrounding the Maskoki proper on all sides, but in their languages we possess an excellent help for classifying them. Language is not an absolute indicator of race, but it is more so in America than elsewhere, for the _large number_ of linguistic families in the western hemisphere proves that the populations speaking their dialects have suffered less than in the eastern by encroachment, foreign admixture, forcible alteration or entire destruction.

Beginning at the southeast, we first meet the historic Timucua family, the tribes of which are extinct at the present time; and after describing the Indians of the Floridian Peninsula, southern extremity, we pass over to the Yuchi, on Savannah river, to the Naktche, Taensa and the other stocks once settled along and beyond the mighty Uk'hina, or "water road" of the Mississippi river.

TIMUCUA.

In the sixteenth century the Timucua inhabited the northern and middle portion of the peninsula of Florida, and although their exact limits to the north are unknown, they held a portion of Florida bordering on Georgia, and some of the coast islands in the Atlantic Ocean, as Guale (then the name of Amelia) and others. The more populous settlements of these Indians lay on the eastern coast of Florida, along the St. John's river and its tributaries, and in the northeastern angle of the Gulf of Mexico. Their southernmost villages known to us were Hirrihigua, near Tampa Bay, and Tucururu, near Cape Cañaveral, on the Atlantic Coast.

The people received its name from one of their villages called Timagoa, Thimagoua (_Timoga_ on De Bry's map), situated on one of the western tributaries of St. John's river, and having some political importance. The name means _lord, ruler, master_ [atimuca "waited upon (muca) by servants (ati)];" and the people's name is written Atimuca early in the eighteenth century. We first become acquainted with their numerous tribes through the memoir of Alvar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca, the three chroniclers of de Soto's expedition, and more fully through Réné de Laudonnière (1564). Two missionaries of the Franciscan order, Francisco Pareja (1612 sqq.) and Gregorio de Mouilla (1635), have composed devotional books in their vocalic language. De Bry's _Brevis Narratio_, Frankfort a. M., 1591, contains a map of their country, and engravings representing their dwellings, fights, dances and mode of living.

A few words of their language (_lengua timuquana_ in Spanish) show affinity with Maskoki, others with Carib. From 1595 A. D. they gradually became converted to Christianity, revolted in 1687 against their Spanish oppressors, and early in the eighteenth century (1706) were so reduced in number that they yielded easily to the attacks of the Yámassi Indians, who, instigated by English colonists, made incursions upon their villages from the North. Their last remnants withdrew to the Mosquito Lagoon, in Volusia County, Florida, where the name of the Tomoco river still recalls their tribal name.

In 1564, Réné de Laudonnière heard of five head chiefs (paracusi) of confederacies in the Timucua country, and from Pareja we can infer that seven or more dialects were spoken in its circumference. The five head chiefs, Saturiwa, Holata Utina, Potanu, Onethcaqua and Hostaqua are only tribal names (in the second, Utina is the tribal appellation), and the dialects, as far as known, were those of Timagoa, Potanu, Itafi, the Fresh-Water district, Tucururu, Santa Lucia de Acuera, and Mocama ("on the coast"). The last but one probably coincided with that of Aïs.

The _Aïs Indians_, who held the coast from Cape Cañaveral, where the Spaniards had the post Santa Lucia, to a lagoon once called Aïsahatcha (viz., _Aïs river_), were considered as a people distinct from the Timucua. They worshiped the sun in the shape of a stuffed deer raised upon the end of a high beam planted in the ground; this gave, probably, origin to their name Aïs, for B. Romans interprets Aïsahatcha by _Deer river_ (itchi, itche _deer_, in Creek and Seminole). Their territory formed the northern part of the "province" of Tequesta. Cf. B. Romans, East and West Florida (New York, 1775), pp. 2. 260. 273. 281. Herrera, Dec. IV, 4, 7. Barcia, Ensayo, p. 118.

CALUSA.

The languages spoken by the Calusa and by the people next in order, the Tequesta, are unknown to us, and thus cannot be mentioned here as forming separate linguistic stocks. I simply make mention of these tribes, because they were regarded as people distinct from the Timucua and the tribes of Maskoki origin.

The Calusa held the southwestern extremity of Florida, and their tribal name is left recorded in Calusahatchi, a river south of Tampa bay. They are called Calos on de Bry's map (1591), otherwise Colusa, Callos, Carlos, and formed a confederacy of many villages, the names of which are given in the memoir of Hernando d'Escalante Fontanedo (Mémoire sur la Floride, in Ternaux-Compans' Collection XX, p. 22; translated from the original Spanish). These names were written down in 1559, and do not show much affinity with Timucua; but since they are the only remnants of the Calusa language, I present the full list: "Tampa, Tomo, Tuchi, Sogo, No (which signifies 'beloved village'), Sinapa, Sinaesta, Metamapo, Sacaspada, Calaobe, Estame, Yagua, Guaya, Guevu, Muspa, Casitoa, Tatesta, Coyovea, Jutun, Tequemapo, Comachica, Quiseyove and two others in the vicinity. There are others in the interior, near Lake Mayaimi--viz., Cutespa, Tavaguemue, Tomsobe, Enempa and twenty others. Two upon the Lucayos obey to the cacique of Carlos, Guarunguve and Cuchiaga. Carlos and his deceased father were the rulers of these fifty towns." Fontanedo states that he was prisoner in these parts from his thirteenth to his thirtieth year; that he knew four languages, but was not familiar with those of Aïs and Teaga, not having been there.

One of these names is decidedly Spanish, Sacaspada or "Draw-the-sword"; two others appear to be Timucua, Calaobe (kala _fruit_; abo _stalk, tree_) and Comachica (hica _land, country_). Some may be explained by the Creek language, but only one of them, Tampa (itímpi _close to it, near it_) is Creek to a certainty; Tuchi resembles tútchi _kidneys_; Sogo, sá-uka _rattle, gourd-rattle_, and No is the radix of a-no-kítcha _lover_, anukídshās _I love_, which agrees with the interpretation given by Fontanedo. Tavaguemue may possibly contain the Creek táwa _sumach_; Mayaimi (Lake), which Fontanedo explains by "_very large_," the Creek augmentative term máhi, and Guevu the Creek u-íwa _water_.

The Spanish orthography, in which these names are laid down, is unfitted for transcribing Indian languages, perhaps as much so as the English orthography; nevertheless, we recognize the frequently-occurring terminal -esta, -sta, which sounds quite like Timucua. There are no doubt many geographic terms, taken from Seminole-Creek, in the south of the peninsula as well as in the north; it only remains to determine what age we have to ascribe to them.

The Calusa bore the reputation of being a savage and rapacious people, and B. Romans (p. 292) denounces them as having been pirates. He informs us (p. 289), that "at Sandy Point, the southern extremity of the peninsula, are large fields, being the lands formerly planted by the Colusa savages;" and that "they were driven away from the continent by the Creeks, their more potent neighbors." In 1763 the remnants, about eighty families, went to Havannah from their last possessions at Cayos Vacos and Cayo Hueso (hueso, _bone_), where Romans saw the rests of their stone habitations (p. 291); now called Cayos bajos and Key West.

On the languages spoken in these parts more will be found under the heading "Seminole."

TEQUESTA.

Of the Tequesta people on the southeastern end of the peninsula we know still less than of the Calusa Indians. There was a tradition that they were the same people which held the Bahama or Lucayo Islands, and the local names of the Florida coast given by Fontanedo may partly refer to this nationality.

They obtained their name from a village, Tequesta, which lay on a river coming from Lake Mayaimi (Fontanedo in Ternaux-C., XX, p. 14) and was visited by Walter Raleigh (Barcia, Ensayo, p. 161). The lands of the Aïs formed the northern portion of the Tequesta domains, and a place called Mocossou is located there on de Bry's map.

This extinct tribe does not seem to have come in contact with the Creeks, though its area is now inhabited by Seminoles.

KATABA.

The Kataba Indians of North and South Carolina are mentioned here only incidentally, as they do not appear to have had much intercourse with any Maskoki tribe. The real extent of this linguistic group is unknown; being in want of any vocabularies besides that of the Kataba, on Kataba river, S. C., and of the Woccons, settled near the coast of N. C., we are not inclined to trust implicitly the statement of Adair, who speaks of a large Kataba confederacy embracing twenty-eight villages "of different nations," on Santee, Combahee, Congaree and other rivers, and speaking dialects of the Kataba language. The Waterees, seen by Lawson, probably belonged to this stock, and the Woccons lived contiguous to the Tuscarora-Iroquois tribe.

The passage of Adair being the only notice on the extent of the Kataba language found in the early authors, excepting Lawson, I transcribe it here in full (History, pp. 224. 225): "About the year 1743, the nation (of the Katahba) consisted of almost four hundred warriors, of above twenty different dialects. I shall mention a few of the national names of those who make up this mixed language; the _Kátahba_ is the standard or court dialect--the _Wateree_, who make up a large town; _Eenó, Charàh_, ||_-wah_, now _Chowan, Canggaree, Nachee, Yamasee, Coosah_, etc. Their country had an old waste field of seven miles extent, and several others of smaller dimensions, which shows that they were formerly a numerous people, to cultivate so much land with their dull stone axes, etc."

After Charàh a new page begins, and the _-wah_ following, which has no connection with what precedes, proves that there is a printer's lacune, perhaps of a whole line. Eenó is given by Lawson as a Tuscarora town;[2] Charàh is the ancient Sara, Saura, Saraw or Sarau mentioned by Lederer and others. The "Nachee" certainly did not speak a Kataba language, nor is there much probability that the Yámassi did so. By the Coosah are probably meant the Indians living on Coosawhatchee river, South Carolina, near Savannah. Adair, in his quality as trader, had visited the Kataba settlements personally.[3]

[Footnote 2: Reprint of 1860, pp. 97. 100. 101. 383.]

[Footnote 3: Cf. B. R. Carroll, Histor. Collect. of S. C., II,
p. 243. Lawson states that the Congaree dialect was not
understood by the Waterees and Chicarees.]

Pénicaut, in his "Relation,"[4] mentions a curious fact, which proves that the alliances of the Kataba extended over a wide territory in the South. In 1708, the Alibamu had invited warriors of the Cheroki, Abika and Kataba (here called _Cadapouces, Canapouces_) to an expedition against the Mobilians and the French at Fort Mobile. These hordes arrived near the bay, and were supposed to number four thousand men; they withdrew without inflicting much damage. More about this expedition under "Alibamu," q. v.

[Footnote 4: Margry, _Découvertes_, V, 477.]

YUCHI.

None of all the allophylic tribes referred to in this First Part stood in closer connection with the Creeks or Maskoki proper than the Yuchi or Uchee Indians. They constituted a portion of their confederacy from the middle of the eighteenth century, and this gives us the opportunity to discuss their peculiarities more in detail than those of the other "outsiders." They have preserved their own language and customs; no mention is made of them in the migration legend, and the Creeks have always considered them as a peculiar people.

General Pleasant Porter has kindly favored me with a few ethnologic points, gained by himself from Yuchi Indians, who inhabit the largest town in the Creek Nation, Indian Terr., with a population of about 500. "In bodily size they are smaller than the Creeks, but lithe and of wiry musculature, the muscles often protruding from the body. Their descent is in the male line, and they were once polygamous. It is a disputed fact whether they ever observed the custom of flattening their children's heads, like some of their neighbors. They call themselves _children of the Sun_, and sun worship seems to have been more pronounced here than with other tribes of the Gulf States. The monthly efflux of the Sun, whom they considered as of the female sex, fell to the earth, as they say, and from this the Yuchi people took its origin. They increase in number at the present time, and a part of them are still pagans. Popularly expressed, their language sounds 'like the warble of the prairie-chickens.' It is stated that their conjurers' songs give a clue to all their antiquities and symbolic customs. They exclude the use of salt from all drugs which serve them as medicine. While engaged in making medicine they sing the above songs for a time; then comes the oral portion of their ritual, which is followed by other songs."

Not much is known of their language, but it might be easily obtained from the natives familiar with English. From what we know of it, it shows no radical affinity with any known American tongue, and its phonetics have often been noticed for their strangeness. They are said to speak with an abundance of arrested sounds or voice-checks, from which they start again with a jerk of the voice. The accent often rests on the ultima (Powell's mscr. vocabulary), and Ware ascribes to them, though wrongly, the Hottentot _cluck_.

The numerals follow the decimal, not the quinary system as they do in the Maskoki languages. The lack of a dual form in the intransitive verb also distinguishes Yuchi from the latter.

The earliest habitat of the Yuchi, as far as traceable, was on both sides of the Savannah river, and Yuchi towns existed there down to the middle of the eighteenth century.

When Commander H. de Soto reached these parts with his army, the "queen" (señora, caçica) of the country met him at the town Cofetaçque _on a barge_, a circumstance which testifies to the existence of a considerable water-course there. Cofetaçque, written also Cofitachiqui (Biedma), Cofachiqui (Garcilaso de la Vega), Cutifachiqui (consonants inverted, Elvas) was seven days' march from Chalaque (Cheroki) "province," and distant from the sea about thirty leagues, as stated by the natives of the place. There were many ruined towns in the vicinity, we are told by the Fidalgo de Elvas. One league from there, in the direction up stream, was Talomeco town, the "temple" of which is described as a wonderful and curious structure by Garcilaso. Many modern historians have located these towns on the middle course of Savannah river, and Charles C. Jones (Hernando de Soto, 1880; pp. 27. 29) believes, with other investigators, that Cofetaçque stood at Silver Bluff, on the left bank of the Savannah river, about twenty-five miles by water below Augusta. The domains of that "queen," or, as we would express it, the towns and lands of that confederacy, extended from there up to the Cheroki mountains.

The name Cofita-chiqui seems to prove by itself that these towns were inhabited by Yuchi Indians; for it contains kowita, the Yuchi term for _Indian_, and apparently "Indian of our own tribe." This term appears in all the vocabularies: kawíta, _man, male_; kohwita, ko-ita, plural kohino'h, _man_; kota, _man_, contracted from kow'ta, kowita; also in compounds: kowĕt-ten-chōō, _chief_; kohítta makinnung, _chief of a people_. The terms for the parts of the human body all begin with ko-. The second part of the name, -chiqui, is a term foreign to Yuchi, but found in all the dialects of Maskoki in the function of _house_, _dwelling_, (tchúku, tchóko, and in the eastern or Apalachian dialects, tchíki) and has to be rendered here in the collective sense of _houses, town_. Local names to be compared with Cofitachiqui are: Cofachi, further south, and Acapachiqui, a tract of land near Apalache.

The signification of the name Yutchi, plural Yutchihá, by which this people calls itself, is unknown. All the surrounding Indian tribes call them Yuchi, with the exception of the Lenápi or Delawares, who style them Tahogaléwi.

But there are two sides to this question. We find the local name Kawíta, evidently the above term, twice on middle Chatahuchi river, and also in Cofetalaya, settlements of the Cha'hta Indians in Tala and Green counties, Mississippi. Did any Yuchi ever live in these localities in earlier epochs? Garcilaso de Vega, Florida III, c. 10, states that Juan Ortiz, who had been in the Floridian peninsula before, acted as interpreter at Cofitachiqui. This raises the query, did the natives of this "capital" speak Creek or Yuchi? Who will attempt to give an irrefutable answer to this query?

The existence of a "queen" or caçica, that is, of a chief's widow invested with the authority of a chief, seems to show that Cofetaçque town or confederacy did not belong to the Maskoki connection, for we find no similar instance in Creek towns. Among the Yuchi, succession is in the male line, but the Hitchiti possess a legendary tradition, according to which the first chief that ever stood at the head of their community was a woman.

To determine the extent of the lands inhabited or claimed by the Yuchi in de Soto's time, is next to impossible. At a later period they lived on the eastern side of the Savannah river, and on its western side as far as Ogeechee river, and upon tracts above and below Augusta, Georgia. These tracts were claimed by them as late as 1736. John Filson, in his "Discovery etc. of Kentucky" vol. II, 84-87 (1793), gives a list of thirty Indian tribes, and a statement on Yuchi towns, which he must have obtained from a much older source: "Uchees occupy four different places of residence, at the head of St. John's, the fork of St. Mary's, the head of Cannouchee and the head of St. Tillis.[5] These rivers rise on the borders of Georgia and run separately into the ocean." To Cannouchee answers a place _Canosi_, mentioned in Juan de la Vandera's narrative (1569); the name, however, is Creek and not Yuchi. Hawkins states that formerly Yuchi were settled in small villages at Ponpon, Saltketchers and Silver Bluff, S. C., and on the Ogeechee river, Ga. In 1739 a Yuchi town existed on the Savannah river, twenty-five miles above Ebenezer, which is in Effingham county, Georgia, near Savannah City (Jones, Tomochichi, p. 117; see next page).

[Footnote 5: The present Satilla river; falsely written St.
Illa, Santilla, St. Tillie.]

From notices contained in the first volume of Urlsperger's "Ausführliche Nachricht," pp. 845. 850-851, we gather the facts that this Yuchi town was five miles above the Apalachicola Fort, which stood in the "Pallachucla savanna," and that its inhabitants celebrated an annual busk, which was at times visited by the colonists. Governor Oglethorpe concluded an alliance with this town, and when he exchanged presents to confirm the agreement made, he obtained skins from these Indians. Rev. Boltzius, the minister of the Salzburger emigrants, settled in the vicinity, depicts their character in dark colors; he states "they are much inclined to Robbing and Stealing," but was evidently influenced by the Yámassi and Yamacraw in their vicinity, who hated them as a race foreign to themselves. Of these he says, "these Creeks are Honest, Serviceable and Disinterested."[6]

[Footnote 6: Extract from Rev. B's Journal; London, 1734, 12mo,
p. 37.]

The reason why the Yuchi people gradually left their old seats and passed over to Chatahuchi and Flint rivers is stated as follows by Benj. Hawkins, United States Agent among the Creeks in his instructive "Sketch of the Creek Country" (1799).[7]

[Footnote 7: Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, vol.
III, part first, pp. 61-63 (Savannah, 1848).]

In 1729, "Captain Ellick," an old chief of Kasí'hta, married three Yuchi women and brought them to Kasí'hta. This was greatly disliked by his townspeople, and he was prevailed upon to move across Chatahuchi river, opposite to where Yuchi town was in Hawkins' time; he settled there with his three brothers, two of whom had intermarried with Yuchis. After this, the chief collected all the Yuchi people, gave them lands on the site of Yuchi town, and there they settled.

Hawkins eulogizes the people by stating that they are more civil, orderly and industrious than their neighbors (the Lower Creeks), the men more attached to their wives, and these more chaste. He estimates the number of their warriors ("gun-men"), including those of the three branch villages, at about two hundred and fifty. These branch towns were Intatchkálgi, "beaver-dam people";[8] Padshiläíka, "pigeon roost"; and Tokogálgi, "tad-pole people", on Flint river and its side creeks; while a few Yuchi had gone to the Upper Creeks and settled there at Sawanógi. Yuchi, the main town, lay on the western bank of Chatahuchi river, on a tributary called Yuchi creek, ten and one-half miles below Kawíta Talahássi, and two miles above Osutchi. Another water course, called "Uchee river," runs from the west into Oklokoni river, or "Yellow Water," in the southwestern corner of the State of Georgia. Morse, in his list of Seminole settlements (1822), mentions a Yuchi town near Mikasuki, Florida.

[Footnote 8: See below: List of Creek Settlements.]

The main Yuchi town on Chatahuchi river was built in a vast plain rising from the river. W. Bartram, who saw it in 1775, depicts it as the largest, most compact, and best situated Indian town he ever saw; the habitations were large and neatly built, the walls of the houses consisted of a wooden frame, lathed and plastered inside and outside with a reddish clay, and roofed with cypress bark or shingles. He estimated the number of the inhabitants at one thousand or fifteen hundred. They were usually at variance with the Maskoki confederacy, and "did not mix" with its people, but were wise enough to unite with them against a common enemy (Travels, pp. 386. 387).

The early reports may often have unconsciously included the Yuchi among the Apalachi[9] and Apalatchúkla. Among the chiefs who accompanied Tomochichi, miko of the Yamacraw Indians, to England in 1733, was Umphichi or Umpeachy, "a Uchee chief from Palachocolas."[10]

[Footnote 9: Cf. Gallatin, Synopsis, p. 95.]

[Footnote 10: Chas. C. Jones, Tomochichi, pp. 58. 83.]

William Bartram, who traveled through these parts from 1773 to 1778, and published his "Travels" many years later,[11] calls them "Uche or Savannuca," which is the Creek Sawanógi, or "dwellers upon Savannah river." This name Savannuca, and many equally sounding names, have caused much confusion concerning a supposed immigration of the Sháwano or Shawnee Indians (of the Algonkin race) into Georgia, among historians not posted in Indian languages. Sawanógi is derived from Savannah river, which is named after the prairies extending on both sides, these being called in Spanish sabana. Sabana, and savane in the Canadian French, designate a grassy plain, level country, prairie, also in Span. pasture extending over a plain; from Latin sabana _napkin_. It still occurs in some local names of Canada and of Spanish America. But this term has nothing at all in common with the Algonkin word sháwano _south_, from which are derived the tribal names: Sháwano or Shawnee, once on Ohio and Cumberland rivers and their tributaries; Chowan in Southern Virginia; Siwoneys in Connecticut; Sawannoe in New Jersey (about 1616); Chaouanons, the southern division of the Illinois or Maskoutens.

[Footnote 11: Published Philadelphia, 1791.]

These tribes, and many others characterized as _southerners_ by the same or similar Algonkin names, had no connection among themselves, besides the affinity in their dialects, which for the Chowans is not even certain. The tradition that Sháwanos existed in Upper Georgia, around Tugĕlo, and on the head waters of the large Georgia rivers, requires therefore further examination. Milfort, in his Mémoire (pp. 9. 10) states that lands were obtained from "les Savanogués, sauvages qui habitent cette partie (de Tougoulou)," for the plantation of vineyards, about 1775. The name of the Suwanee river, Florida, and that of Suwanee Creek and town, northeast of Atlanta, Georgia, seem to contain the Creek term sawáni _echo_. By all means, these names cannot serve to prove the presence of the Sháwano tribe in these eastern parts, but a settlement of Sháwanos, also called Sawanógi, existed on Tallapoosa river, where they seem to have been mixed with Yuchi.[12]

[Footnote 12: Cf. List of Creek Towns, and Pénicaut, in B.
French, Hist. Coll. La., new series, p. 126; Force, Some Notices
on Indians of Ohio, p. 22.]

A. Gallatin, "Synopsis of the Indian Tribes," p. 95, mentions a tradition, according to which "the ancient seats of the Yuchi were east of the Coosa, and probably of the Chatahuchi river, and that they consider themselves as the most ancient inhabitants of the country." Of which country? If the whole country is meant, which was at the dawn of history held by Maskoki tribes, the name of the Yazoo river may be adduced as an argument for the truth of this tradition, for yasu, yashu is the Yuchi term for _leaf_ and any _leaf-bearing tree_, even _pines_ (from yá, _wood, tree_), and Kawíta has been mentioned above. From a thorough comparative study of the Yuchi language, the Maskoki dialects and the local nomenclature of the country, we can alone expect any reliable information upon the extent and the area of territory anciently held by the Yuchi; but at present it is safest to locate their "priscan home" upon both sides of Lower Savannah river.

CHEROKI.

Intercourse between the Creek and the Cheroki Indians must have taken place in prehistoric times, as evidenced by local names, and more so by Cheroki terms adopted into the Creek language.

The Cheroki, or more correctly, Tsálagi nation is essentially a hill people; their numerous settlements were divided into two great sections by the watershed ridge of the Alleghany mountains, in their language Unéga katúsi ("_white, whitish mountains_"), of which even now a portion is called "Smoky Mountains." Northwest of that ridge lay the Cheroki villages of the _Overhill settlement_, Ótari, Ótali ("_up, above_"), along the Great and Little Tennessee rivers and their tributaries, while southeast of it, in the mountains of North Carolina and on the head waters of the Georgia rivers, extended the towns of the _Lower Cheroki_, or Erati (in Cheroki élati, _below, nether_). There were also a number of Cheroki villages in the northern parts of Alabama State, and du Pratz distinctly states, that the "Chéraquies" lived east of the Abé-ikas.[13] While calling a person of their own people by the name of Atsálagi, in the plural Anitsálagi, they comprise all the Creeks under the name of Kúsa, from Coosa river, or more probably from the ancient, far-famed town of the same name: Agúsa, Kúsa, Gúsa, _a Creek person_; Anigúsa, _the Creek people_; Gúsa uniwoní'hsti, _the Creek language_.

[Footnote 13: Le Page du Pratz, Hist. de la Louisiane, II, p.
208 sq. (Paris, 1758): "A l'est des Abé-ikas sont les
Chéraquis."]

The Cheroki language was spoken in many dialects before the people emigrated to the lands allotted to them in the northeastern part of the Indian Territory, and even now a difference may be observed between the Western Cheroki and the Eastern or Mountain Cheroki, which is the language of the people that remained in the hills of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee.[14] Mr. Horatio Hale has recently demonstrated the affinity of Cheroki with the Iroquois stock;[15] Wendát and Tuscarora form other dialectic branches of it, showing much closer relation to the Iroquois dialects of Western New York than Cheroki. Thirty-two terms of the Keowe dialect (Lower Cheroki), taken down by B. Hawkins, are embodied in an unpublished vocabulary, which is in the possession of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.[16] Another ancient dialect is that of Kitówa or Kitúa; this is the name by which the Cheroki are known among several northern tribes, as Delawares and Sháwano (cf. below); it was also the name of a secret society among the Cheroki, which existed at the time of the Secession war.

[Footnote 14: The Mountain Cheroki are centering around
Quallatown, Haywood county, N. C., and an United States agent is
residing in their country. Their population is about 1600;
others live in Northern Georgia.]

[Footnote 15: H. Hale, "Indian Migrations, as evidenced by
language." American Antiquarian, vol. V, pp. 18-28 and 108-124
(1883).]

[Footnote 16: The name Keowe is taken from a narcotic plant used
for catching fish, which grew in the vicinity of that village.]

The Cheroki Indians are bodily well developed, rather tall in stature and of an irritable temper, flashing up easily. In the eighteenth century they were engaged in constant wars, and from their mountain fastnesses made sallies upon all the surrounding Indian tribes. The Iroquois or "Northern Indians" attacked them in their own country, as they also did the Kataba and Western Algonkins. A warlike spirit pervaded the whole Cheroki nation, and even women participated in their raids and fights.[17]

[Footnote 17: Lieut. H. Timberlake, Memoirs (London, 1765), pp.
70. 71. Urlsperger, Nachricht, I, p. 658, where they are called
"Tzerrickey Indianer." D. Coxe calls them Sulluggees.]

Wm. Bartram states, that the Cheroki men had a lighter and more olive complexion than the contiguous Creek tribes, adding that some of their young girls were nearly as fair and blooming as European women. H. Timberlake, who visited a portion of their villages (on Great Tennessee river) in 1762, represents them as of a middle stature, straight, well built, with small heads and feet, and of an olive color, though generally painted. They shaved the hair of their heads, and many of the old people had it plucked out by the roots, the scalp-lock only remaining. The ears were slit and stretched to an enormous circumference, an operation which caused them incredible pain and was adopted from the Sháwano or some other northern nation. The women wore the hair long, even reaching to the knees, but plucked it out from all the other parts of the body, especially the looser part of the sex (Memoirs, pp. 49-51). Polygamy then existed among them. They erected houses extending sometimes from sixty to seventy feet in length, but rarely over sixteen in width, and covered them with narrow boards. Some of these houses were two stories high, and a hot-house or sudatory stood close to every one of these capacious structures. They also made bark canoes and canoes of poplar[18] or pine, from thirty to forty feet long and about _two_ feet broad, with flat bottoms and sides. Pottery was made by them of red and white clay (_Ibid._, pp. 59-62).

[Footnote 18: The term for _poplar_, tsíyu, is also the term for
_canoe_ and for _trough_.]

The male population was divided into a class of head-men or chiefs, recruited by popular election, the selection being made among the most valorous men and the best orators in their councils; and in two classes of "yeomen": the "warriors" and the "fighting men," these being inferior to the warriors.

Distinction in reward of exploits was conferred through the honorary titles of Outacity, "man killer," Kolona, "raven" and "Beloved," names to which parallels will be found among the Creeks. (_Ibid._, pp. 70, 71.)

Seven clans or gentes exist among the Cheroki, and many of them observe to the present day the regulations imposed by the gentile organization. They will not marry into their own gens or phratry, for instance. The totems of these gentes (anatáyaⁿwe, _gens, clan_) were obtained in 1880 from Mr. Richard Wolf, delegate of the people to the United States government, as follows:

1. Aniweyahiá anatáyaⁿwe, _wolf_ gens, the most important of
all.

2. Ane-igilóhi anatáyaⁿwe, _long hair_ gens.

3. Anigodegē′we, the gens to which Mr. Wolf belongs. They can
marry into all gentes, except into the _long hair_ clan, because
this contains their "_aunts_" (ä`loki).

4. Anitsī′skwa, _bird_ gens.

5. Aniwō′te, _paint_ gens; (wō′te, wo′de, _clay_; aniwō′ti,
_paint_).

6. Anigo-ulé, anikulé, _acorn_ gens.

7. Anisahóne, _blue_ gens.

Besides the fact that gentes Nos. 2 and 3 belong to one phratry, the other phratries and their names were not remembered by the informant. The prefix ani- marks the plural of animate beings.

The list of totemic gentes printed in Lewis H. Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 164, differs from the above in giving ten gentes, two being extinct, and one or two being perhaps phratries and not gentes:--

1. _Wolf_, aniwhíya. 2. _Red paint_, aniwóte. 3. _Long prairie_, anigätagáni'h. 4. _Deaf_ (a bird), dsuliniana. 5. _Holly tree_, anisdásdi. 6. _Deer_, anikáwi'h. 7. _Blue_, anisahókni. 8. _Long hair_, anikalóhai. 9. _Acorn_, anidsúla (extinct). 10. _Bird_, anidséskwa (extinct).

The names of several Cheroki towns are mentioned by the historians of de Soto's expedition, which traversed a portion of their country; by Adair, Timberlake and by Wm. Bartram, who has left a long list of their settlements.

The rare publication: Weston (Pl. Chas. Jennett), Documents connected with the History of South Carolina, London, 1856, 4to, contains an article by de Brahm, which gives an ethnologic sketch and many other particulars of the Southern Indians, and especially refers to the Cheroki (pp. 218-227). The English-Cheroki war, from February to August, 1760, is narrated pp. 208-213.

The tradition that the Cheroki, or rather a portion of them, were found living in caves, is substantiated by the appellation "Cave-dwellers," given to them by the Northern Indians. The Comanches call them Ebikuita; the Senecas, Uyáda, cave-men; the Wendát, Uwatáyo-róno, from uwatáyo, which in their language means "_hole_ in the ground, _cave_;" the Sháwano call them Katowá, plural Katowági; and the Delawares by the same name, Gatohuá (Barton, Appendix, p. 8: Gattóchwa). This refers to Kitówa, one of their towns previously mentioned. Caves of the old Cheroki country were examined by archæologists, and some of them showed marks of former occupation, especially caves in Sullivan and Hawkins counties, Tennessee. This reminds us of the Troglodytæ and Mandritæ of ancient times, of the Cliff-Dwellers on Upper Colorado river, New Mexico, and of other American tribes, which lived in caves. Thus a Shasti tribe, the Weohow, are reported to have received this name from a "stone house" or rock dwelling situated in their country, east of Shasta River and south of the Siskiyou Mountains.[19]

[Footnote 19: Cf. Ind. Affairs' Report, 1864, p. 120.]

Lists of the ancient Cheroki towns will be found in W. Bartram's Travels, p. 371-372 (forty-three), in H. Timberlake (his map is also reproduced in Jefferys' Topography of N. A., an atlas in fol., 1762), and in J. Gerar W. de Brahm, Hist. of the Prov. of Georgia, Wormsloe 1849, fol., p. 54.

ARKANSAS.

None of the numerous Algonkin tribes lived in the immediate neighborhood of the Maskoki family of Indians, but of the Dakotan stock the Arkansas (originally Ákansā--the Akansea of Father Gravier), dwelt in close proximity, and had frequent intercourse with this Southern nation.

Pénicaut relates[20] that the French commander, Lemoyne d'Iberville, sailed up the Mississippi river, and sixty leagues above the mouth of the Yazoo found the mouth of the Arkansas river; eight leagues above, on the same western shore, was the nation of the Arkansas, and in their town were two other "nations," called Torimas and Kappas. By these warlike and hunting tribes he was received in a friendly manner. The men are described as stout and thick-set (gros et trapus), the women as pretty and light-complexioned. Imahao, another Arkansas village, is mentioned in Margry IV, 179. The affluent of the Mississippi on which the Arkansas were settled was, according to D. Coxe, Carolana, p. 11, the Ousoutowy river: another name for Arkansas river.[21]

[Footnote 20: Margry, P., Découvertes et Etablissements des
Français dans l'ouest et dans le Sud de l'Amérique
Septentrionale, Paris, 1876, etc., V, 402.]

[Footnote 21: cf. D. Coxe, Carolana, pp. 11. 13.]

From Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, who makes a special study of all the Dakota tribes, I obtained the following oral information, founded on his personal intercourse with individuals of the Káppa tribe:

"Ákansa is the Algonkin name by which the Kápa, Quápa were called by the eastern Indians, as Illinois, etc. They call themselves Ugáχpa and once lived in four villages, two of which were on Mississippi, two on Arkansas river, near its mouth: Their towns, though now transferred to the Indian Territory, northeastern angle, have preserved the same names:

"1. Ugaχpáχti or 'real Kápa.' Ugáχpa means 'down stream,' just
as O′maha means 'up stream.'

"2. Tiwadímaⁿ, called Toriman by French authors.

"3. Uzutiúhe, corrupted into O′sotchoue, O′sochi, Southois by
the French authors. Probably means: 'village upon low-land
level.'

"4. Taⁿwaⁿzhika or 'small village;' corrupted into Topinga,
Tonginga, Donginga by the French.

"The Pacaha 'province' of de Soto's historians is a name inverted from Capaha, which is Ugáχpa. The form Quápa is incorrect, for Kápa (or Kápaha of La Salle), which is abbreviated from Ugáχpa."

In 1721 LaHarpe saw three of their villages on the Mississippi river, and noticed snake worship among these Indians.

TAENSA.