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]
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.
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).
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]
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]
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.
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]
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.
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]
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.
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.
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]
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).
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]
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]
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.
I. THE NORTHERN TAENSA.
On account of the recent discovery of their consonantic language, which proves to be disconnected from any other aboriginal tongue spoken in North America, a peculiar interest attaches itself to the tribe of the Taensa Indians, whose cabins stood in Tensas county, Louisiana, bordering east on Mississippi river. The Tensas river, in French Bayou Tensa, which joins the Washita river at Trinity City, after forming a prodigious number of bends, and flowing past a multitude of artificial mounds, still keeps up the memory of this extinct tribe.
In March 1700, the French commander L. d'Iberville calculated the distance from the landing of the Natchez to that of the Taensas, following the river, at about 15½ leagues, and in the air-line, 11¼ leagues. That Taensa landing, at the foot of a bluff nine hundred feet high (150 toises), was about 32°5´ Lat., while d'Iberville, trusting his inaccurate methods of measuring, located it at 32°47´ Lat. (Margry IV, 413).
The tribe occupied seven villages at the time of d'Iberville's visit, which were distant four leagues from the Mississippi river, and grouped around a semi-circular lake, probably Lake St. Joseph. One hundred and twenty of these cabins were extending for two leagues on the lake shore, and a "temple" was among them. The missionary Montigny, who visited the locality about the same epoch, estimated the population of that part of the Taensa settlement which he saw at 400 persons. "They were scattered over an area of eight leagues, and their cabins lay along a river."
The seven villages visited by d'Iberville constitute one town only, as he was told. This means to say that they formed a confederacy. A Taensa Indian, who accompanied him, gave their names in the Chicasa trade language, or, as the French called it, the Mobilian jargon (Margry IV, 179).
1. Taënsas; from Cha'hta taⁿdshi maize.
2. Ohytoucoulas; perhaps from úti chestnut; cf. utápa chestnut eater. For -ougoula, cf. p. [36].
3. Nyhougoulas;
4. Couthaougoulas; from Cha'hta uk'hátaχ lake.
5. Conchayon; cf. Cha'hta kónshak reed, species of cane.
6. Talaspa; probably from ta`lapi five, or ta`lepa hundred.
7. Chaoucoula; from Cha'hta issi deer, or hátche river, water-course.
In the Taensa Grammar and Vocabulary of Haumonté, Parisot and Adam (Paris, 1882), the name by which the people called itself is Hâstriryini "warriors, men, tribe;" cf. p. 91: hâstri to fight, make war; hâstrir warrior, man; hâstriryi people, tribe; but Tensagini also occurs in the texts, which would point to an extensive maize culture.
The Taensa were sun worshipers, and had a temple with idols and a perpetual fire. When d'Iberville sojourned among them, lightning struck their temple and destroyed it, upon which the mothers sacrificed their infants, to appease the wrath of the incensed deity, by throwing them into the burning edifice (Margry IV, 414, etc.; V, 398). The people then rubbed their faces and bodies with earth. Nothing definite is known about their gentes, phratries and totems. Several French authors represent them as speaking the Naktche language (which is untrue) and as being of the same nation.[22] D'Iberville states that their language differed from that of the Huma tribe.
The remnants of a tribe called Mosopellea, probably of Illinois-Algonkin origin and previously residing west of the "Isle of Tamaroa," on western shore of Mississippi river, joined the Taensa, and were met there in 1682 by Tonti. They had been almost annihilated by the Iroquois.[23]
The Taensa had, at one time, formed an alliance with the Koroa, then on Yazoo river, and another with the Arkansas Indians.
The Taensa grammar speaks of a northern and of a southern, more polished dialect, but does not locate them topographically. The only word of Taensa which I have found to agree with any other language, is ista eye; it also occurs in Southern Dakotan dialects.
II. THE SOUTHERN TAENSA.
In early colonial times a portion of the Northern Taensa, driven from their homes on the Taensa river by the rage of the Chicasa, fled to the Mobilians. The French settled them on the western side of Mobile bay, below Fort St. Louis, and thirty miles above Fort Condé, which stood on the site of the present city of Mobile.[24] The French called them "les petits Taënsas" in contradistinction to the "great (or northern) Taënsas," on Mississippi and Taensa rivers. About the middle of the eighteenth century one hundred of their cabins stood north of the French fort St. Louis, and also north of the Tohome Indian settlement. The Taensa were then speaking their native language and, besides this, a corrupt Chicasa dialect, called the Mobilian language by the French.[25] Subsequently they must have removed from there to the eastern channel, for Bartram, Travels, pp. 401. 403, describes Taensa there as a "pretty high bluff, on the eastern channel of the great Mobile river, about thirty miles above Fort Condé, or city of Mobile, at the head of the bay ... with many artificial mounds of earth and other ruins." During the wars of 1813-15 the adjacent country is called the "Tensaw country."
It is not unlikely that these Taensa were identical with the "petits Taënsas" seen by Lemoyne d'Iberville at the Huma town in March 1700, and described by him as migratory, but living most of the time at three days' distance west of Huma, and then warring against the Bayogoulas. They gained their sustenance by hunting, though buffaloes were scarce in their country, and were men of a fine physique (Margry IV, 408). In 1702 they defeated the Bayogoulas and burnt their village on Mississippi river; the Bayogoulas fled to the French fort on that river, then commanded by Mr. St. Denis. If identical with the Taensa on Mobile river, these fights of theirs must have occurred during their passage from the North to the bay of Mobile.
III. THE TANGIPAHOA.
A third tribe, which may have stood in some connection with the two tribes above, are the Tangipahoa Indians settled in various places east of New Orleans, especially on Tangipahoa river, in southeastern Louisiana. A French author states that they formed one of the seven villages of the Acolapissa. The name is written in different ways, and is interpreted by Gov. Allen Wright as "those who gather maize stalks," from táⁿdshe maize; ápi stalk, cob; áyua they gather. Pénicaut defines the name differently, for he states (Margry V, 387) "we found (northwest of Lake Pontchartrain) a river, Tandgepao, which in the Indian signifies 'bled blanc.'" The Taensapaoa tribe, on the river of the same name, is referred to in Bartram, Travels, p. 422; cf. p. 423. We have no notice concerning the language spoken by this tribe, which was, perhaps, incorporated into the Cha'hta living now around New Orleans; thus we are unable to decide whether they spoke Cha'hta, like the other Acolapissa, or another tongue. The Tangibao tribe was "destroyed by the Oumas," as stated in a passage of Margry (IV, 168); by which is meant, that they were scattered and their tribal connection disrupted.
NAKTCHE.
Of the Lower Mississippi tribes the most powerful and populous was that of the Naktche, settled at the beginning of the eighteenth century in nine villages on and about St. Catherine creek (Lúkfi-ákula in Cha'hta: "clay-digging place," to daub houses with), in a beautiful and fertile country. This stream wends its way first south, then west, in a semi-circular course, around the present city of Natchez, Mississippi, and runs at an average distance of three to four miles from it. Other Naktche villages existed in its vicinity.
Náktche is the correct form of the tribal name, though this people appears to have called itself by some other appellation. Natchez is the old-fashioned plural adopted from French orthography; we might just as well write Iroquoiz, Islinoiz or Adayez, instead of the terminal -s now designating the plural in French. The Cheroki Indians call a Nache, Natche or Náktche person A′noχtse, A′nnoχtse, the people or tribe Anínoχtse, shortened into Ani`htse, which proves that a guttural has been elided from the present form of the name. Isalakti, from whom Albert Gallatin obtained a vocabulary of the language, called himself a Nahktse, not a Natche chief.
The name is of Shetimasha origin, I have reasons to assume. Náksh in that language means one that is in a hurry, one running, náksh así,[26] abbrev. náksh warrior; and the earliest French explorers may have heard that name from the Shetimasha Indians settled on the Mississippi, where Bayou Lafourche, also called the river of the Shetimasha, branches off from it. Should the name belong to the Chicasa trade language, we might think of the Cha'hta adverb: naksika aside, away from, referring to the site of the Naktche villages at some distance from the great "water-road," the Mississippi river.
The Naktche tribe owes its celebrity and almost romantic fame to several causes: their towns were populous, the government more centralized than that of the surrounding native populations; the French settled in their vicinity, and hence their authors have left to posterity more information concerning their confederacy than concerning other tribes; their stubborn resistance to French encroachments gave them a high reputation for bravery; their religious customs, centering in a highly developed sun-worship, made of them an object of curious interest and far-going ethnologic speculation for the white colonists, whose views on the Naktche we must receive with the utmost caution.
L. d'Iberville reports, that at the time of his visit (March 1699) the villages of the Naktche made up one town only, and formed a complex of contiguous villages called Théloël or Thécoël[27] (Margry IV, 179).
The annalist Pénicaut, who visited these parts in 1704, states that the nine villages were situated in a delightful country, swarming with buffaloes, drained by rivulets and partly wooded. The village or residence of the head chief, the Sun, lay one league from the Mississippi river, and three other villages were on a brook, at a distance of half a league from each other. He alludes to their human sacrifices, the frequency of infanticide, and gives descriptions of their temple, perpetual fire, their "marche des cadavres" and articles of dress. The house of the Sun was large enough to contain four thousand persons; he had female servants called oulchil tichon, and thirty male attendants ("laquais") or loüés, the Allouez of other chroniclers. Mother-right prevailed among them (Margry V, 444-456).
The Taensa guide, who accompanied d'Iberville to the Naktche tribe in 1699, furnished him a list of the nine villages, their names being given in the Chicasa trade language. I presume that they are given in the topographical order as they followed each other on St. Catharine creek, from its mouth upward, since the "Nachés" village or residence of the Sun was distant one league only from the Mississippi river. We are not acquainted with the names given to these villages in the Naktche language. The etymologies of the Cha'hta language were obtained from Allen Wright; the suffixed word -ougoula is the Cha'hta ókla people, tribe.
1. Nachés;
2. Pochougoula; "pond-lily people," from Cha'hta pántchi pond lily.
3. Ousagoucoulas; "hickory people," from Cha'hta û′ssak, óssak hickory.
4. Cogoucoulas; "swan people," from ókok swan.
5. Yatanocas;
6. Ymacachas; almost homonymous with the Arkansas village Imahao, mentioned above.
7. Thoucoue; probably identical with Théloël (cf. above) and the Thioux of later authors.
8. Tougoulas; "wood or forest people" from iti wood.
9. Achougoulas; "pipe people," from ashunga pipe, literally, "the thing they smoke from;" cf. shúngali I smoke from.
Although these names are considerably frenchified in their orthography, the meaning of some admits of no doubt. When I visited Natchez city in January 1882, I was informed that the White Apple village, called Apilua (Vpelois) and mentioned by Le Page du Pratz, is supposed to have existed twelve to fifteen miles southeast of the city. The White Earth village and the village of the Meal were other settlements of theirs. Owing to incessant rains, I could not explore the sites to their full extent, but found a flat mound south of St. Catharine's creek, with a diameter of thirty-two feet and perfectly circular, which lay at the same distance from the Mississippi as given above for the residence of the Sun. Col. J. F. H. Claiborne's History of Mississippi, vol. I, 40-47, gives valuable extracts from French archives, pointing to the real sites of the Naktche habitations. The colossal mound of Seltzer-town stands but a short distance from the creek alluded to, and is fourteen miles from Natchez city to the northeast.
The settlement of the French on the heights of Natchez, the growing animosity of the natives against the intruders, the three successive wars, the massacre of the colonists in November, 1729, and the final dispersion of the tribe in February 1730, are well-known historic facts and need not be repeated in this volume. The disorganized warriors retreated with their families to different parts of the country. One party fled across Mississippi river to some locality near Trinity City, La., where they entrenched themselves, but were attacked, defeated and partly captured by a body of French troops two years later. Another party reached the Chicasa country and was granted a home and protection by that tribe; but the revengeful French colonists declared war upon the hospitable Chicasa for sheltering their mortal enemies, and invaded their lands by way of the Yazoo river in 1736, but were compelled to retreat after suffering considerable loss. Fort Tombigbee, constructed in 1735, served as a second base for the French operations. Further French-Chicasa wars occurred in 1739-40 and in 1748.[28]
Later on, we find their remnants among the Creeks, who had provided them with seats on Upper Coosa river, and incorporated them into their confederacy. They built a village called Naktche, and a part of them went to reside in the neighboring Abikúdshi town. Naktche town lay, in B. Hawkins' time (1799), on a creek of the same name, joining Coosa river sixty miles above its confluence with Tallapoosa river, and harbored from fifty to one hundred warriors (Hawkins, p. 42). A number of Naktche families, speaking their paternal language, now live in the hilly parts of the Cheroki Nation, Indian Territory.
A body of Indians, called by French and English writers Thioux and Grigras, remained in the vicinity of the Natchez colony after the departure of the Naktche Indians, who had been the ruling tribe of the confederacy. It is doubtful whether these two divisions were of foreign or of Naktche origin, though the latter seems improbable. The Grigras were called so on account of a peculiarity in their pronunciation; it probably referred to what the French call grasseyer, and the Canadian French parler gras.[29] Eleven Sháwano were once brought to the villages as captives, and were known there as "Stinkards," "Puants," terms which served to interpret the Naktche term métsmetskop miserable, bad, wretched, inferior.
The scanty vocabularies which we possess of the Naktche language contain a sprinkling of foreign terms adopted from the Chicasa or Mobilian. Two languages at least were spoken before 1730 in the Naktche villages; the Naktche by the ruling class or tribe; the other, the Chicasa or trade language by the "low people;" and hence the mixture referred to. Du Pratz gives specimens of both. Naktche is a vocalic language, rich in verbal forms, and, to judge from a few specimens, polysynthetic to a considerable degree in its affixes.
TONICA.
Migratory dispositions seem to have inhered to the Tonica or Tunica tribe in a higher degree than to their southern neighbors, for in the short lapse of two centuries we see them stationed at more than three places.
In a letter addressed by Commander Lemoyne d'Iberville to the Minister of the French Navy, dated from Bayogoulas, February 26th, 1700, he states that an English fur-trader and Indian slave-jobber had just visited the Tonica, who are on a river emptying into the Mississippi, twenty leagues above the Taensa Indians, at some distance from the Chicasa, and 170 leagues from the Gulf of Mexico. When d'Iberville ascended the Yazoo river in the same year, he found a village of this tribe on its right (or western) bank, four days' travel from the Natchez landing. Seven villages were seen upon this river, which is navigable for sixty leagues. The Tonica village, the lowest of them, was two days' travel from Thysia, the uppermost (Margry IV, 180. 362. 398; V, 401). La Harpe mentions the establishment of a mission house among the Tonica on Yazoo river.[30]
In 1706, when expecting to become involved in a conflict with the Chicasa and Alibamu Indians, the Tonica tribe, or a part of it, fled southward to the towns of the Huma, and massacred a number of these near the site where New Orleans was built afterwards (French, Hist. Coll. of La., III, 35). The "Tunica Old Fields" lay in Tunica county, Mississippi State, opposite Helena, Arkansas. Cf. Cha'hta.
They subsequently lived at the Tonica Bluffs, on the east shore of the Mississippi river, two leagues below the influx of the Red river. T. Jefferys, who in 1761 gave a description of their village and chief's house, states that they had settled on a hill near the "River of the Tunicas," which comes from the Lake of the Tunicas, and that in close vicinity two other villages were existing (Hist. of French Dominions, I, 145-146).[31] Th. Hutchins, Louisiana and West Florida, Phila., 1784, p. 44, locates them a few miles below that spot, opposite Pointe Coupée and ten miles below the Pascagoulas, on Mississippi river. So does also Baudry de Lozières in 1802, who speaks of a population of one hundred and twenty men.
In 1817, a portion of the tribe, if not the whole, had gone up the Red river and settled at Avoyelles, ninety miles above its confluence with the Mississippi. A group of these Indians is now in Calcasieu county, Louisiana, in the neighborhood of Lake Charles City.
A separate chapter has been devoted to this tribe, because there is a strong probability that their language differed entirely from the rest of the Southern tongues. Le Page du Pratz, l.l., in confirming this statement, testifies to the existence of the sound R in their language, which occurs neither in Naktche nor in the Maskoki dialects or Shetimasha (II, 220-221). We possess no vocabulary of it, and even the tribal name belongs to Chicasa: túnnig post, pillar, support, probably post of territorial demarcation of their lands on the Yazoo river. The only direct intimation which I possess on that tongue is a correspondence of Alphonse L. Pinart, who saw some Tonica individuals, and inferred from their terms that they might belong to the great Pani stock of the Western plains.
ADÁI.
Of this small and obscure Indian community mention is made much earlier than of all the other tribes hitherto spoken of in this volume, for Cabeça de Vaca, in his Naufragios, mentions them among the inland tribes as Atayos. In the list of eight Caddo villages, given by a Taensa guide to L. d'Iberville on his expedition up the Red river (March 1699), they figure as the Natao (Margry IV, 178).
The Adái, Atá-i, Háta-i, Adayes (incorrectly called Adaize) seem to have persisted at their ancient home, where they formed a tribe belonging to the Caddo confederacy. Charlevoix (Hist. de la Nouvelle France, ed. Shea VI, p. 24) relates that a Spanish mission was founded among the Adaes in 1715. A Spanish fort existed there, seven leagues west of Natchitoches, as late as the commencement of the nineteenth century. Baudry de Lozières puts their population at one hundred men (1802), and Morse (1822) at thirty, who then passed their days in idleness on the Bayou Pierre of Red river. Even at the present time they are remembered as a former division of the Caddo confederacy, and called Háta-i by the Caddo, who are settled in the southeastern part of the Indian Territory.
A list of about 300 Adái words was gathered in 1802 by Martin Duralde, which proves it to be a vocalic language independent of any other, though a few affinities are traceable with the Pani dialects. The orthography of that vocabulary cannot, however, be fully relied on. The original is in the library of the American Philosophical Society, in Philadelphia. Rob. G. Latham, in his "Opuscula; Essays, chiefly philological," etc., London 1860; pp. 402-404, has compared Adahi words with the corresponding terms of other North American languages, but without arriving at a definite result.
PANI.
The great family of Pani Indians has, in historic times, extended from the Platte river southward to the Gulf of Mexico. From the main stock, the Sanish or Arikari have wandered on their hunting trips north to the Middle Missouri river, while the Pani, in four divisions, had the Platte and its tributaries for their headquarters. The southern tribes are the Witchita, the Towákone or Three Canes, who speak the Witchita dialect, the Kichai and the originally Texan tribes of the Caddo and Waco (Wéko, in Spanish: Hueco.)[32]
The Pani family was too remote from the Maskoki tribes to enter in direct connection with them. Some of the southern septs had intercourse with them, mainly through the French colonists. Fights between Caddos and Cha'hta are recorded for the eighteenth century. The Pani family is mentioned here simply because the legendary caves from which the Creek nation is said to have sprung lay on Red river, within the limits of the territory held by some of the southern Pani nations.
When L. d'Iberville ascended the western branch of the Red river, now called Red river (the eastern branch being Washita or Black river), in March 1699, he saw and visited eight villages of the Caddo connection. His Taensa guide named them as follows:
Yataché; called Yátassi by Americans.
Nactythos; they are the Natchitoches.
Yesito;
Natao; the Adái above.
Cachaymons;
Cadodaquis; full form, Cado-hadatcho or "chief tribe."
Natachés;
Natsytos.
The Cachaymons and the Cadodaquis had been previously visited by Cavelier de la Salle, when returning from the Cenys, in the central parts of Texas.[33]
The Caddo confederacy consists of the following divisions or tribes, as given me by a Caddo Indian in 1882:
Kado proper; kádo means chief, principal.
Anadáko, Anadāku; also Nandako.
Ainai, Ayenai; also Hini, Inies upon an affluent of Sabine river; identical with the Tachies (Sibley). From this tribal name is derived Texas, anciently Tachus, Taxus.
Natchidosh, Nashédosh; the Natchitoches.
Yátassi.
Anabaidaítcho, Nabádatsu; the Nabedatches, who are nearly extinct now.
Nátassi; identical with the Natachés above.
Nakúhĕdōtch, Nakohodótse; the Nagogdoches.
Assine, Assíni; the Asinays of French explorers.
Hadaí; the Adái, Adáye, q. v.
Yowā′ni, now in Texas.
A′-ish; a few of these are now living in Texas, called Alish, Eyish by former writers.
The Caddo relate, as being the mythical origin of their nation, that they came from a water-sink in Louisiana, went westward, shoved up earth by means of arrow-heads, and thus made a mountain. The totems of their gentes once were, as far as remembered, bear ná-ustse, panther kö′she, wolf tá-isha, snake kíka, wild-cat wadó, owl néa, ó-ush.
When Milfort passed through the Red river country about 1780, the Caddo, whom he describes as fallacious in trading, were at war with the Cha'hta (Mémoire, p. 95).
In 1705 some Colapissa from the Talcatcha river, four leagues from Lake Pontchartrain, settled upon the northern bank of this lake at Castembayouque (now Bayou Castin, at Mandeville), and were joined, six months after, by a party of "Nassitoches," whom famine had driven from their homes on Red river.[34]
SHETIMASHA.
These natives once dwelt in numerous settlements clustering around Bayou Lafourche, Grand river (or Bayou Atchafalaya), and chiefly around Grand Lake or Lake of the Shetimasha. All that is left of them—about fifty-five Indians, of a parentage strongly mixed with white blood, reside at Charenton, St. Mary's Parish, on the southwestern side of the lake, though a few are scattered through the forests on Grand river. They call themselves Pántch pínunkansh, "men altogether red." The name Shetimasha, by which they are generally known, is of Cha'hta origin, and means "they possess (imásha) cooking vessels (tchúti)." Their central place of worship was three miles north of Charenton, on a small inlet of Grand Lake. They worshiped there, by dances and exhaustive fasting, their principal deity, Kút-Nähänsh, the "mid-day sun."
They were not warlike, and never figured prominently in colonial history. When a portion of the tribe, settled on Bayou Lafourche, had murdered Mr. Saint-Cosme, a Naktche missionary descending the Mississippi river in 1703, they were attacked by the colonists and their Indian allies. The war ended with a speedy submission of the savages. They called the Naktche Indians their brothers, and their myths related that their "Great Spirit" created them in the country of that people, and gave them laws, women and tobacco. The Cha'hta tribes, who attempted to deprive them of their native land, made continual forays upon them during the eighteenth century.
These Indians were strict monogamists. The chieftaincy was a life-long office among them. The chiefs lived in lodges larger than those of the common people, and their tobacco pipes were larger than those of the warriors. The foreheads of the children were subjected to the flattening process.[35]
Their language is extremely polysynthetic as far as derivation by suffixes is concerned, and there are also a number of prefixes. For the pronouns thou and ye a common and a reverential form are in use. The faculty for forming compound words is considerable, and the numerals show the decimal form of computation.
ATÁKAPA.
To close the list of the linguistic families encircling the Maskoki stock, we mention the Atákapa, a language which has been studied but very imperfectly. This tribe once existed upon the upper Bayou Tèche northwest and west of the Shetimasha, north and northwest of the Opelousa Indians, and from the Tèche extended beyond Vermilion river, perhaps down to the sea coast. The Atákapa of old were a well-made race of excellent hunters, but had, as their name indicates, the reputation of being anthropophagists (Cha'hta: hátak, hattak person, ápa to eat). At first, they suffered no intrusion of the colonists into their territory and cut off expeditions attempting to penetrate into their seats. During the nineteenth century they retreated toward the Sabine river. The name by which they call themselves is unknown; perhaps it is Skunnemoke, which was the name of one of their villages on Vermilion river, six leagues west of New Iberia. Cf. Th. Hutchins (Phila., 1784).
The scanty vocabulary of their language, taken in 1802, shows clusters of consonants, especially at the end of words, but with its queer, half-Spanish orthography does not appear to form a reliable basis for linguistic conclusions. A few words agree with Tónkawē, the language of a small Texan tribe; and according to tradition, the Karánkawas, once the giant people of Matagorda bay, on the Texan Coast, spoke a dialect of Atákapa. These three tribes were, like all other Texan tribes, reputed to be anthropophagists. In extenuation of this charge, Milfort asserts that they "do not eat men, but roast them only, on account of the cruelties first enacted against their ancestors by the Spaniards" (p. 90). This remark refers to a tribe, also called Atákapas, which he met at a distance of five days' travel west of St. Bernard bay.
We have but few notices of expeditions sent by French colonists to explore the unknown interior of what forms now the State of Louisiana. One of these, consisting of three Frenchmen, was in 1703 directed to explore the tribes about the river de la Madeleine, now Bayou Tèche. The two men who returned reported to have met seven "nations" there; the man they lost was eaten by the natives, and this misfortune prompted them to a speedy departure. The location seems to point to the territory of the Atákapa.[36]
The enumeration of the southern linguistic stocks winds up with the Atákapa; but it comprises only the families the existence of which is proved by vocabularies. Tonica and the recently-discovered Taensa furnish the proof that the Gulf States may have harbored, or still harbor, allophylic tribes speaking languages unknown to us. The areas of the southern languages being usually small, they could easily escape discovery, insomuch as the attention of the explorers and colonists was directed more toward ethnography than toward aboriginal linguistics.
The southern tribes which I suspect of speaking or having spoken allophylic languages, are the Bidai, the Koroa, the Westo and Stono Indians.
BIDAI.
Rev. Morse, in his Report to the Government (1822), states that their home is on the western or right side of Trinity river, Texas, sixty-five miles above its mouth, and that they count one hundred and twenty people. In 1850 a small settlement of five or six Bidai families existed on Lower Sabine River.
The Opelousas of Louisiana and the Cances of Texas spoke languages differing from all others around them.[37]
KOROA.
The earliest home of this tribe, which figures extensively in French colonial history, is a mountainous tract on the western shore of Mississippi river, eight leagues above the Natchez landing. They were visited there, early in 1682, by the explorer, C. de la Salle, who noticed the compression of their skulls (Margry I, 558. 566). They were a warlike and determined people of hunters. In 1705 a party of them, hired by the French priest Foucault to convey him by water to the Yazoos, murderously dispatched him with two other Frenchmen (Pénicaut, in Margry V, 458). A companion of C. de la Salle (in 1682) noticed that the "language of the Coroa differed from that of the Tinsa and Natché," but that in his opinion their manners and customs were the same (Margry I, 558).
Koroas afterward figure as one of the tribes settled on Yazoo river, formerly called also River of the Chicasa, and are mentioned there by D. Coxe, Carolana (1742), p. 10, as Kourouas. They were then the allies of the Chicasa, but afterward merged in the Cha'hta people, who call them Kólwa, Kúlua. Allen Wright, descended from a grandfather of this tribe, states that the term is neither Cha'hta nor Chicasa, and that the Koroa spoke a language differing entirely from Cha'hta.[38] A place Kolua is now in Coahoma county, probably far distant from the ancient home of this tribe. The origin of the name is unknown; the Cha'hta word: káⁿlo strong, powerful, presents some analogy in sound.
THE WESTO AND STONO INDIANS
lived in the vicinity of the English colony at Charleston, South Carolina. Their predatory habits made them particularly troublesome in 1669-1671 and in 1674, when they had to be repulsed by an army of volunteers. The Stonos must have lived north of the colony, or on the upper course of some river, for, in 1674, they are described as "coming down" (Hewat, Histor. Account of S. C. and Ga., London 1779; I, 51. 77). Stono Inlet is the name of a cove near Charleston. Both tribes also met with disastrous reverses at the hands of the Savannah Indians, probably the Yámassi (Archdale). They are both mentioned as having belonged to the Kataba confederacy, but this does not by any means prove that they spoke Kataba or a dialect of it. As to the name, the Westo Indians may be identified with the Oustacs of Lederer (who are reported as being at war with the Usherees), and with the Hostaqua of René de Laudonnière, who mentions them as forming a confederacy under a paracusi in the northern parts of the "Floridian" territory. Possibly the Creek word ō′sta four, in the sense of "four allied tribes," has given origin to this tribal name (ostáka in Alibamu).
The affinity of the extinct Congaree Indians, on Congaree river, is doubtful also; Lawson relates that they did not understand the speech of the Waterees and Chicarees. Cf. Kataba. Owing to the inactivity of the local historians, our ethnographic information on the North and South Carolina Indians is extremely meagre and unsatisfactory.
REMARKS TO THE LINGUISTIC MAP.
The linguistic map added to this volume is an attempt to locate, in a general way, the settlements pertaining to the Indians of each of the linguistic stocks of the Gulf States, as far as traceable in the eighteenth century. Some of them, as the Timucua and Yámassi settlements, are taken from dates somewhat earlier, while the location of the Atákapa tribe is known to us only from the first decennium of the nineteenth century. The marking of the linguistic areas by dots, pointing to the tribal settlements, answers much better the purpose than the coloring of large areas, which conveys the erroneous impression that the population was scattered all over a certain country. This will do very well for densely populated countries, or for tracts inhabited by roving, erratic Indians, whom we meet only on the west side of the Mississippi river. The Gulf States' Indians were no longer in the condition of pure hunting tribes; they had settled in stationary villages, and derived the main part of their sustenance from agriculture and fishing.
The location of the Chicasa, Cheroki, Seminole and Caddo (Pani) tribes were not indicated with that completeness which the subject requires. The northwest corner of the map shows the tracts occupied at present in the Indian Territory by tribes of Maskoki lineage.