A notion constantly recurring in the Maskoki migrations is that they journeyed east. This, of course, only points to the general direction of their march in regard to their starting point. As they were addicted to heliolatry, it may be suggested that their conjurers advised them to travel, for luck, to the east only, because the east was the rising place of the sun, their protector and benefactor. Cosmologic ideas, like this, we find among the Aztecs, Mayas, Chibchas and many other American nations, but the direction of migrations is determined by physical causes and not by visionary schemes. Wealth and plunder prompted the German barbarians, at the beginning of the mediæval epoch of history, to migrate to the south of Europe; here, in the Gulf territories, the inducement lay more especially in the quest of a country more productive in grains, edible roots, fish and game. It may be observed here, that from the moving of the heavenly bodies from east to west the Pani Indians deduced the superstition that they should never move directly east in their travels.[151] This, however, they rarely observed in actual life at the expense of convenience.
TCHIKILLI'S KASI'HTA LEGEND.
The Kasi'hta migration legend, in its detailed form as now before us, has been transmitted in the following manner:
After Tchikilli had delivered it in the year 1735 at Savannah, in the presence of Governor Oglethorpe, of the colonial authorities and people, and of over sixty of his Indian followers (cf. p. [193], the interpreter handed it over, written upon a buffalo skin, to the British, and in the same year it was brought to England. To these statements, the American Gazetteer[152] adds the following particulars, which seem to be founded on authentic information: "This speech was curiously written in red and black characters, on the skin of a young buffalo, and translated into English, as soon as delivered in the Indian language.... The said skin was set in a frame, and hung up in the Georgia Office, in Westminster. It contained the Indians' grateful acknowledgments for the honors and civilities paid to Tomochichi, etc."
Upon the request of Dr. Brinton, Mr. Nicholas Trübner made researches in the London offices for this pictured skin, but did not succeed in finding it. He discovered, however, a letter written by Tchikilli, dated March, 1734, which is deposited in the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane.[153]
The chances of rediscovering the English original of the legend are therefore almost as slim as those of recovering the lost books of Livy's History. But a translation from the English has been preserved in a German book of the period, and the style of this piece shows it to be an authentic and comparatively accurate rendering of the original. The German book referred to is a collection of pamphlets treating of colonial affairs, and published from 1735 to 1741; its first volume bears the title: Ausfuehrliche Nachricht von den Saltzburgischen Emigranten, die sich in America niedergelassen haben. Worin, etc. etc., Herausgegeben von Samuel Urlsperger, Halle, MDCCXXXV. The legend occupies pp. 869 to 876 of this first volume, and forms chapter six of the "Journal" of von Reck, the title of which is as follows: Herrn Philipp Georg Friederichs von Reck Diarium von Seiner Reise nach Georgien im Jahr 1735. F. von Reck was the commissary of those German-Protestant emigrants whom religious persecution had expelled from Salzburg, in Styria, their native city.