12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 182 



Their ranks were supplemented from time to time not only by rogues 

 and outlaws from other groups but by remnants of other tribes who 

 came to them for protection against their enemies. This fact ac- 

 comits for their fierceness and treacherousness. 



It was reported, much later, that this same group occupied a 

 strategic and well- fortified position astride a trading path, one that 

 f omied a hindrance to the settlement of the interior of Virginia and 

 North Carolina (map 3). With such advantages, the Occaneechi be- 

 came rather prosperous and wealthy, according to standards of their 

 day. However, this prosperity brought about their destruction and 

 caused them to abandon their island fortress. The blending of cast- 

 offs into their ranks and their ability to act in the capacity of middle- 

 men in the trade of the area should have resulted in an amalgamative 

 culture. This is more or less borne out by Jolm Locke (Alvord and 

 Bidgood, 1912, pp. 224^-225) who stated— 



... ye iland where ye Occhenechees are seated strongly fortified by nature 

 and makes them soe insolent for they are but a handful of people, besides 

 what vagabonds repaire to them it beeing a recptackle for rogues. 



Apparently, just before the advent of the white man into the New 

 World, a general movement and alinement of tribes and gTOups was 

 taking place. This process was later accelerated by the arrival of the 

 white man, which made conditions more acute as time went on. The 

 white man, ever greedy for material wealth and bodily comfort, 

 brought pressure to bear upon the larger groups, which in turn was 

 reflected upon the smaller groups. This pushing of the smaller 

 groups out of their old homes or bringing about their extinction added 

 to the general turmoil. 



Indian settlements in this section of Virginia were never very popu- 

 lous, as attested by the size and number of aboriginal remains found 

 within a given area. This can possibly be explained by stating that the 

 aborigines arrived early and general warfare was unknown or uncom- 

 mon. There was room for everybody, which accounts for the scattered 

 small settlements and communities. 



Regarding their migration legend, Lederer said : 



The Indians now seated in these parts are none of those which the English 

 removed from Virginia, but a people driven by an enemy from the Northwest, 

 and invited to sit down here by an Oracle aboiit four hundred years since, as 

 they pretended; for the ancient inhabitants of Virginia (Tacci, alias Dogi), 

 were far more rude and barbarous, feeding only on raw flesh and fish, until these 

 taught them to plant corn, and shewed them the use of it. 



Strachey (1849, p. 33), on the other hand, had been told by the 

 Powhatan that they had been inhabitants below the falls of the James 

 River for only about 300 years. Hawkes and Linton (1917, pp. 53-54) 

 pointed out tliat tlie Lenape, according to their own statements, came 

 into the Delaware Valley between 1387 and 1397. These statements, 



