390 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



symbols for a complete syllabic system by various ingenious 

 modifications of the letters in an English book. He could him- 

 self neither read nor write, nor speak any language but his own, 

 his only notion of writing being derived from hearsay and printed 

 books. The syllabary, which is still in use and serves its purpose 

 well, comprises 85 signs, of which one only, s, is a true letter, all 

 the rest being full syllables made up of 15 consonants generally in 

 combination with six vowels, as, ka, ke, ki, kv, ku^ kc. The 

 Cherokis, who have not met with over-generous treatment at 

 the hands of the authorities, have all been removed from their 

 original homes in Virginia and the Carolinas to Indian Territory, 

 where they hold the most important of all the Reservations with a 

 present population, including the Choktaws, of a little over 27,000. 

 All the rest of the once powerful Iroquoians number probably less 

 than 20,000, distributed in about equal parts between United States 

 and Dominion Agencies. 







The just mentioned Choktaws were at one time a leading 

 branch of the Muskhogean family, the other chief 

 members of which were the Muskhogis (Maskoki) 

 proper, generally known as "Creeks" from the 

 numerous inlets or coast streams in their territory on the Gulf of 

 Mexico ; the Seminoles of Florida ; the Chicasaws, Alibamus, 

 Apalachi, and a few others, whose collective domain comprised 

 nearly the whole region between Tennessee and the Gulf, and 

 between the Lower Mississippi and the Atlantic. Florida, later 

 occupied by the Seminoles, did not originally belong to this 

 family, but to the now extinct Timuquanans, who spoke a distinct, 

 though not necessarily a stock, language. In fact Gatschet has 

 suggested Carib affinities, and although the Caribs are now be- 

 lieved to have had their cradle, not in North America but in 

 Central Brazil, it is likely enough that these rovers may in 

 prehistoric times have passed from the Antilles to Florida, whence 

 they were later driven out by the Seminoles. Pourtales, and 

 later Heilprin, have shown that Florida has been inhabited from 

 remote times, and it appears from Mr C. B. Moore's researches 1 

 that the skulls from the old burial-mounds and earthworks are 



1 Certain Sand- Mounds of Dwal Country, Florida, &c., Jour. A cad. Nat. 

 Sc. Philadelphia, x 1895. 



