The meaning here assigned to Alligewinengk, "land where they arrived from distant places," is evidently based on the resolution of the compound into talli, there, icku, to that place, ewak, they go, with a locative final. The initial t is often omitted in adverbial compounds of talli (itself a compound of ta, locative particle, and li, to), as allamunk, in there.
Bishop Ettwein gives to the word a different meaning. He writes: "The Delawares call the western country Alligewenork, which signifies a War-Path; the river itself they call Alligewi Sipo." (Legends and Traditions, etc., in Bull. of the Pa. Hist. Soc. p. 34.) Here the derivation would be from palliton, to fight, ewak, they go, and a locative, "they go there to fight." The omission of the initial p was not uncommon, as Campanius gives ayuta = alliton, to make war. (Catechismus, p. 141.)
Basing his opinion on an expression in the Journal of C. F. Post, to the effect that Alleghany means "fine or fair river," Dr. J. H. Trumbull analyzes it into wulik, hanne, sipu, which he translates "best, rapid-stream, long-river" (Connect. Hist. Soc. Colls. Vol. II).
Rafinesque, in the MS. of the Walum Olum, gives Talligewi the translation "there found," from talli, there, and I know not what word for "found."
There have not been wanting those who would derive the name Alleghany from Iroquois roots, as the Seneca De-o-na-ga-no, "cold water" (Amer. Hist. Mag. Vol. IV, p. 184). But there is no probability that the word is Iroquois.
Whatever its origin, the name was not confined to the Alleghany river, but included the whole of the Upper Ohio, as the interpreter Post distinctly says.
The Rev. Mr. Heckewelder was of opinion that Talligewi was a word foreign to the Algonkin, a nomen gentile of another tribe, adopted by the Delawares, just as they adopted Mengwe for the Iroquois from the Onondaga Yenkwe, men ([see above, page 14]). It is not necessarily connected with Alleghany, which may be pure Algonkin. He says, "Those people called themselves Talligeu or Talligewi." (Indian Nations p. 48.) The accent, as he gives it, Tallige'wi, shows that the word is, Talliké, with the substantive verb termination, so that Talligewi means, "He is a Talliké" or, "It is of (belongs to) the Talliké."
This appears to me the most probable supposition of any I have quoted, and it reduces our quest to that of a nation who called themselves by a name which, to Lenape ears, would sound like Talliké. Such a nation presents itself at once in the Cherokees, who call themselves Tsa'laki. Moreover, they fill the requirements in other particulars. Their ancient traditions assign them a residence precisely where the Delaware legends locate the Tallike, to wit, on the upper waters of the Ohio ([see above, page 17]). Fragments of them continued there until within the historic period, and the persistent hostility between them and the Delawares points to some ancient and important contest.
Name, location and legends, therefore, combine to identify the Cherokees or Tsalaki with the Tallike, and this is as much evidence as we can expect to produce in such researches. I can see no reason whatever for Dr. Shea's opinion that the Lenape "in their progress eastward drove out of Ohio the Quappas, called by the Algonkins, Alkanzas or Alligewi, who retreated down the Ohio and Mississippi." (Shea, Notes to Alsop's Maryland, p. 118.)
The question remains, whether the Tallike were the "Mound Builders." It is not so stated in the Walum Olum. The inference rather is that the "Snake people," Akowini or Akonapi, dwelt in the river valleys north of the Ohio river, in the area of Western Ohio and Indiana, where the most important earthworks are found—and singularly enough none more remarkable than the immense effigy of the serpent in Adams County, Ohio, which winds its gigantic coils over 700 feet in length on the summit of a bold bluff overlooking Brush Creek.