The pristine homes of the Yuchi are not now traceable with any degree of certainty. The Yuchi are supposed to have been visited by De Soto during his memorable march, and the town of Cofitachiqui chronicled by him, is believed by many investigators to have stood at Silver Bluff, on the left bank of the Savannah, about 25 miles below Augusta. If, as is supposed by some authorities, Cofitachiqui was a Yuchi town, this would locate the Yuchi in a section which, when first known to the whites, was occupied by the Shawnee. Later the Yuchi appear to have lived somewhat farther down the Savannah, on the eastern and also the western side, as far as the Ogeechee River, and also upon tracts above and below Augusta, Georgia. These tracts were claimed by them as late as 1736.
In 1739 a portion of the Yuchi left their old seats and settled among the Lower Creek on the Chatahoochee River; there they established three colony villages in the neighborhood, and later on a Yuchi settlement is mentioned on Lower Tallapoosa River, among the Upper Creek.[99] Filson[100] gives a list of thirty Indian tribes and a statement concerning Yuchi towns, which he must have obtained from a much earlier 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” (Satilla), etc.[101]
[Population.—]More than six hundred Yuchi reside in northeastern Indian Territory, upon the Arkansas River, where they are usually classed as Creek. Doubtless the latter are to some extent intermarried with them, but the Yuchi are jealous of their name and tenacious of their position as a tribe.
[WAIILATPUAN.]
= Waiilatpu, Hale, in U.S. Expl. Exp., VI, 199, 214, 569, 1846 (includes Cailloux or Cayuse or Willetpoos, and Molele). Gallatin, after Hale, in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, c, 14, 56, 77, 1848 (after Hale). Berghaus (1851), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1852. Buschmann, Spuren der aztek. Sprache, 628, 1859. Bancroft, Nat. Races, III, 565, 1882 (Cayuse and Mollale).
= Wailatpu, Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1853 (Cayuse and Molele).
X Sahaptin, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 323, 1850 (cited as including Cayús?).
X Sahaptins, Keane, App. Stanford’s Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 474, 1878 (cited because it includes Cayuse and Mollale).
= Molele, Latham, Nat. Hist. Man, 324, 1850 (includes Molele, Cayús?).
> Cayús?, Latham, ibid.