14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 182 



all based on legendary lore, are interesting, for they would indicate 

 that the historic groups were practically newcomers into this general 



area. 



It has been said that the home of the eastern ''Siouan" tribes was 

 possibly Ohio ; if this belief be true then they must have had to cross 

 the Shenandoah Valley before entering the Piedmont, where they 

 were said to have been established when first encountered by the Eng- 

 lish colonists. Why didn't they stop in the Valley west of the Blue 

 Ridge Mountains where the land was rich and game plentiful ? This 

 can only be explained by the presence of the Iroquois and Delaware 

 tribes who passed back and forth through this corridor causing less 

 warlike groups to vacate the Shenandoah Valley and to seek safer 

 homesites elsewhere. These facts were proved when the English nego- 

 tiated a treaty at Lancaster, June 27, 1744. One of the Deputies of 

 the Six Nations, Tachonoontia, reminded the English : 



All the World knows we conquered the several Nations living on the Sasqua- 

 hanua, Cohongorouta, and on the Back of the Great Mountains in Virginia ; 

 the Oonoy-uch-such-roona, Coch-new-was-roonan, Toha-riogh-roonan, and Con- 

 nutshin-ough-roonaw, feel effect of our Conquest, being now a part of our 

 Nations, and their lands at our Disposal. We know very well, it hath often 

 been said by the Virginians, that the Great King of England, and the People of 

 that Colony, conquered the Indians who lived there, but it is not true. [Colden, 

 1902, vol. 2, p. 149.] 



The following day one of the Commissioners replied : 



If the Six Nations have made any Conquest over Indians that may at any Time 

 have lived on the West-side of the Great Mountains of Virginia, yet they never pos- 

 sessed any Lands there that we have ever heard of. That Part teas altogether 

 deserted and free for any People to enter upon [writer's italics] as the People 

 of Virginia have done by Order of the Great King, very justly, as well by 

 Ancient Right, as by its being freed from the possession of any other, and 

 from any claim even of you the Six Nations, . . . [Colden, 1902, vol. 2, p. 160.] 



This conquest of the Valley by the Six Nations that had taken place 

 prior to the advent of the white man caused whatever Indian groups 

 that were present either to migrate eastward where they were found 

 in 1607 or to be assimilated by the Iroquois, as stated by Tachonoontia. 



There is still another fact that should not be overlooked, namely, 

 considerable portions of the area were not encumbered with people. 

 Ileckwelder (in Hawkes and Linton, 1916, p. 64) pointed this out as 

 follows : "The seeming absence of prior occupants in the new country 

 is again suggested by the Walum Olum, which refers to the newly 

 discovered land as a 'land free from snakes (enemies), a rich land, a 

 pleasant land.' " This absence of peoples becomes more apparent if 

 one will only take the time to follow Lawson (1860) closely in his 

 travels through the two Carolinas. He remarked that — 



... it must be confessed that the most noble and sweetest part of this country 

 is not inhabited by any but savages ; and a great deal of the richest part thereof 



