530 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



shores were most of the time just east of the present Appalachians, 

 while its eastern border must have been in the neighborhood of the 

 present Continental Shelf. The rocks of Appalachia were of pre- 

 Cambrian age and from them was derived an enormous mass of sedi- 

 ment in the western sea trough which was latterly uplifted to form 

 the Appalachian Mountain chain. Hence the home of the Cherokees 

 is formed by the remnants of deposit of ancient seas of far-off geologic 

 periods. 



The actual origin of the Cherokee tribe has been the subject of con- 

 siderable speculation by scholars and students of these matters. As 

 we see them today the Cherokees appear to be a race well adjusted to 

 a mountain habitat and who may well have dwelled in these areas of 

 western North Carolina for millennia. The early writers on the 

 Cherokees thought that they detected many resemblances to the ancient 

 Hebrews in the priesthood, "cities of refuge," and ceremonial proce- 

 dures of these Indians. They even pointed out physical resemblances 

 in color of skin, shape of face, and other traits which would ally the 

 Cherokees with the so-called "lost tribes of Israel." 



John Haywood, in his book "Natural and Aboriginal History of 

 Tennessee" (1823, p. 231 ff.), thought that the Cherokees were a tribe 

 compounded of two populational elements. The first element was a 

 group from southern Asia, perhaps from India, or from the ancient 

 Near East, who established an empire centering at Natchez on the 

 lower Mississippi River. These people built mounds, erected idols, 

 performed human sacrifices, erected walled wells of brick, constructed 

 fortifications, worshiped the phallus, revered the number seven as 

 sacred, and lived under despotic rulers. The second element, which 

 entered later, was "from the north" and composed of a savage people, 

 rude but under democratic institutions, well organized for military 

 purposes, and who conquered and amalgamated with the first element 

 to form the Cherokees as the white man encountered them. 



In a work entitled "The Cherokees in pre-Columbian Times" (1890) 

 the great American archeologist Cyrus Thomas traced the Cherokee 

 Indians as a mound-building group to the upper reaches of the Ohio 

 River and thence to the Mississippi River and to its upper sources near 

 Lake Superior. His evidence lay in the discoveries regarding the 

 distribution of mounds, platform pipes, engraved shell work, tradi- 

 tions of northern affiliation, and other items. 



It has been known since 1798, through the work of Benjamin S. 

 Barton (New views on the origin of the tribes and nations of America) 

 that the Cherokee language shows many similarities to that of the 

 Iroquois Indians of New York. On the basis of this and other north- 

 ern affiliations it has been assumed that the common ancestors of the 

 Cherokees and the Iroquois found their way from the Mississippi up 



