2 [34] TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



PREFACE. 



The investigation of the ancient reports on the migrations of tribes and nations counts 

 among the most difficult problems of ethnologic science. The fact itself that certain peoples 

 and tribes have migrated to distant countries admits of no doubt, but the authors who trans- 

 mitted the reports had them from hearsay only, and tradition is never so trustworthy as 

 accounts written down contemporaneously with the facts. Without an exact chronology 

 there is no historiography, but traditions and legends are caring little for chronology; 

 proper names of persons and localities in them disappear from memory, because thev are 

 difficult to remember. From fortuitous coincidence of names etymologic legends come to 

 the surface, like the story now current in the west, that the Yuchi tribe have once sepa- 

 rated from the Utes (Yuta) and travelled east. 



A similar baseless story concerning the migration of the Creek or Maskoki people from 

 the west is contained in Milfort, " Memoire sur la nation Creek," Paris, 1S02, pp. 229 sqq., 

 the work of an author who had lived among the people for many years. He pretends that 

 the Creeks or " Moskoquis," as he calls them, once formed a separate people in the north- 

 west of Mexico, and, when Montezuma was attacked by Cortes and his troops, succored 

 him ; they were vanquished, and preferred emigration to some distant land to abject slavery. 

 They marched to the Red river of Louisiana, became involved in a conflict with the Alibamu 

 Indians, and, while pursuing them, arrived in the country held by them afterwards and set- 

 tled there. The origin of this curious mystification lies in the cii cumstance, that all the wild 

 and hunting tribes in the north of Mexico and from Florida to California were called Chi- 

 chimecs by the uneducated part of the Spanish immigrants, after a half-savage people ot 

 mountaineers near Anahuac. The French colonists obtained this name from Spaniards of the 

 Rio Grande or of Pensacola, who applied it to all Indiaji tribes east and west of the Lower 

 Mississippi. The Cenis or Assinai, for instance, were regarded as inhabitants of the 

 " province de Chichimeque " (Margry, Dec iv. 547) about the year 1700, and the primitive 

 Chicasas were considered as Chichimecas as well (Adair, Hist. 195, 197). Now it was a 

 current tradition that all tribes of the Maskoki family had come from the west; being con- 

 sidered as Chichimecs, from what other part could they have come except from Mexico, 

 the old home of that people? So the invented story became plausible and was generally 

 believed in, if not by all Indians, at least by the colonists. 



We may add to this a number of fantastic reports on Indian emperors and empires, war 

 expeditions, splendid capitals and temples, inaccuracies about the languages spoken by 

 certain tribes, far-going ethnologic speculation founded upon insufficient evidence, and 

 relating frequently to' the origin and provenience of certain tribes and the American race 

 in general. The works of Adair and DuPratz, though otherwise of high value, contain 

 many misstatements of this kind, and their manner of considering dry facts and real occur- 

 isnces is often blurred by these views. Chroniclers, explorers and even state documents 

 are not free from misstatements on the condition of the Indian in colonial times. In many 

 respects the old men among the Indians now living are the safest guides for these eth no- 



