256 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



forinei- location and close to the Georgia line. The removal may have been 

 due to the recent establishment of the mission at the old place. It was a 

 large settlement, about equally made up from the two tribes, but by this time 

 the Natchez were iudistinguishable in dress or general appearance from the 

 others, and nearly all spoke broken Cherokee, while still retaining their own 

 language. As most of the Indians had come under Christian influence so far as 

 to have quit dancing there was no townhouse. Harry Smith, father of the late 

 chief of the East Cherokee, and born about 1815, also remembers them as living 

 on the Hiwassee and calling themselves Nd'tsi. 



From Ganse'ti, or Rattling gourd, another mixed-blood Cherokee, who was 

 born on Hiwassee river in 1820 and went west at the removal eighteen years 

 later, it appears that in his time the Natchez were scattered among the Chei'- 

 okee settlements along the upper part of that stream, extending down into 

 Tennessee. They had then no separate townhouses. Some, at least, of them 

 had- come up from the Creeks, and spoke Creek and Cherokee as well as their 

 own language, which he could not understand, although familiar with both the 

 others. They were great dance leaders, which agrees with their traditional 

 reputation for ceremonial and secret knowledge. They went west with the 

 Cherokee at the final removal of the tribe to Indian Territory in 1838. In 

 1890 there were a considerable number on Illinois river a few miles south of 

 Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, several of them still speaking their own lan- 

 guage, among whom were Groundhog, John Rogers, and a woman named Ke- 

 haka. Some of these may have come with the Creeks, as by an agreement 

 between the Creeks and Cherokee, before the time of the removal, it had been 

 arranged that citizens of either tribe living within the boundaries claimed by 

 the other might remain without question if they so elected. Among the East 

 Cherokee in North Carolina, about 1890, there were several who claimed 

 Natchez descent, but only one of full Natchez blood, an old woman named 

 Alkiui, who spoke with a drawling tone said to have been characteristic of that 

 people as older men remembered them years ago.o 



In 1007 the writer found five persons who could still speak the 

 Natchez language living close to Braggs, then in the Cherokee na- 

 tion, but not far from the borders of the Creek nation. Most of 

 them could sjieak Creek and Cherokee as well, and it is uncertain 

 whether they Avere part of the original Cherokee band of Natchez or 

 had moved over in later times from the Creeks. The latter view is, 

 however, probably the correct one. These five persons were known 

 to their white neighbors as Creek Sam, Wat Sam, Charlie Jumper, 

 Lizzie Rooster, and Nancy Taylor. (Pis. 8, 9.) Farther south, on 

 Illinois creek, is a settlement of Indians of Natchez descent called 

 " Natchez town," but it is said that no one there now speaks the old 

 language. As is the case with the Creeks, there are many Cherokee 

 who have Natchez blood in varying degrees of purity, some perhaps 

 in larger measure than those who retain the speech, but most of these 

 no longer consider themselves of the Natchez tribe. In the spring of 

 1908 the number of speakers of Natchez was still further reduced by 

 the death of Creek Sam, who is said to have been over 80 years old. 

 In the fall of that year the Avriter visited his son, Wat Sam, and 



" Mooncy in Amer. Anihrop., n. s., \, 517-518. 



