80 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 69 
old men at the town house and partook with them of the black drink. 
I then visited the falls and lands adjoining to the town. The falls 
are at 2} miles above the town house.’’ (Hawkins, B., (2), p. 37.) 
It was at Tukabatchi that Tecumseh, in 1811, met the chiefs of the 
Upper Creeks and endeavored to persuade them to join in the pro- 
posed war against the Americans. When he realized that he had not 
succeeded in his designs he is said to have remarked: “I leave 
Tuckhabatchee directly, and shall go straight to Detroit; when I 
arrive there, I will stamp on the ground with my foot, and shake down 
every house in Tuckhabatchee.” (Drake, (1), p. 144.) This caused 
fear and consternation among the people of the nation, and it 
is remarkable that later in the year occurred the great earthquake 
in the central portion of the Mississippi Valley, and it is evident the 
shocks were felt as far as Tukabatchi, where the houses were shaken 
down. ‘To the Indian mind there was a direct connection between the 
threat made by Tecumseh and the natural phenomenon. 
The custom of whitewashing the various structures was ovine 
quite general among the southern Indians, and several materials were 
used, including decayed shells, white cles and in later days lime 
was prepared by burning oyster and clam shells. _To what extent the 
houses were otherwise decorated is not known, although it was done 
among the Creeks and probably followed to some degree by the other 
tribes of the region. Bartram, when replying to a question respecting 
this phase of art among the Indians, wrote: 
“The paintings which I observed among the Creeks were com- 
monly on the clay-plastered walls of their houses, particularly on 
the walls of the houses comprising the Public Square . . . The walls 
are plastered very smooth with red clay, then the figures or symbols 
are drawn with white clay, paste, or chalk; and if the walls are 
plastered with clay of a whitish or stone color, then the figures are 
drawn with red, brown, or bluish chalk or paste.” (Bartram, W., 
(1), p. 18.) The drawings represented many forms of animal and 
plant life. 
During the eighteenth century many families removed from the 
Lower Creek towns, on the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers, to 
Florida, and so became known as the Seminole, a name derived from 
the Creek word meaning “separatist” or ‘runaway.’ Later they 
were joined by others from the Upper Creeks, and soon established 
many settlements, first in the northern and central parts of the 
peninsula, gradually moving southward seeking refuge among the 
vast swamps in the region about Lake Okeechobee. 
The town of Cuscowilla, which, in the year 1774, stood near the 
shore of the lake of that name, in the present Alachua County, 
Florida, was an important and probably typical Seminole village. 
