106 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bdll. 196 



inorli gv:ghine:tshi ga : ghuy>^ : sadi 



Inoili they just gave me permission to pay them, I 



tsd:n(i)la:tsi ts(i)sgili6:gwa ga:ghuyv dha'li 



Tsa:n(l)la:tsl Ts(i)sglU6:gwa I paid It two 



ade:lv de:tsihv:ga du:yu:gh(o)dv 



money 1 put them (hard) down right 



nigdrdv ga : sgin6 : tshe : 1a? 1861 



all you (pi.) gave me permission 1861 



FREE TRANSLATION 



1861 



Wa.'huhu, I assume, has now resigned as judge. He resigned as 

 judge the 5th day of August. It has become necessary for him to be 

 paid. They gave me, Ino:li, permission to pay Tsd:n(i)la:tsi and 

 Ts{i)sgilie:gwa. I paid them. I expended $2.00, doing the right 

 thing, as all of you gave permission to do. 



1861 



COMMENTARY 



As seen elsewhere, Ts(i)sgilie:gwa was Chief of Wolf town, but we 

 do not learn what official position Tsd:n{i)la:tsi held. The "they" 

 and "aU of you" that gave Inodi his authority were members of the 

 Wolftown Council. 



The Ts(i)sgilie:gwa was very likely the individual mentioned by 

 Mooney (1900, p. 179): ". . . among those who died at this time 

 [1896] being Big-witch (Tskil-6gwa), the oldest man of the band, who 

 distinctly remembered the Creek war. . . ." On p. 538 (ibid.) 

 Mooney elaborates upon the derivation of this personal name: 

 "Although translated Big-witch by the whites, the name is under- 

 stood by the Indians to mean Big-owl . . ., having been originally 

 appHed to a white man living on the same clearing, noted for his 

 large staring eyes." 



Mooney and Olbrechts (1932, p. 29) state: "The meaning of tsiktli 

 is HteraUy 'hooting owl,' but since this night bird is considered as a 

 bird of ill omen, and because of the mysterious occult power ascribed 

 to it, moreover because it indulges in its activities only during the 

 night as the witches do, the word has been extended to mean 'witch.' " 



A sacred formula utihzing a term combining both connotations is 

 found in Kilpatrick (1962 a, p. 5). 



The Mooney caption for this document is: "Wdhuhu resigns as 

 Judge— Inali Sec [Secretary] or Clerk Wolftown WW." 



