12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [boll. 73 
In the first place it may be stated that sufficient linguistic material 
is preserved from the Apalachee, ] Hitchiti, Mikasuki, Alabama, 
Koasati, Choctaw, Chickasaw, the leading tribes of the Muskogee 
branch, Natchez, Yuchi, and Timucua, to establish their positions 
beyond question. The connection of all of the other tribes of the 
Choctaw group except Pensacola, that of the Chatot, and the tribes of 
the Natchez branch has been examined by the author in his Indian 
Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley, to which the reader is referred. 2 
That Hitchiti with but slight variations was spoken by the Apala- 
chicola, Sawokli, and Okmulgee is known to all well-informed Creek 
Indians to-day, and some of the people of those tribes can use it or 
know some words of it. The town names themselves are in Hitchiti. 
Oconee is placed by Bartram among those towns speaking the 
"Stinkard" language, 8 and all of the other towns so denominated, 
so far as we have positive information, spoke Muskhogean dialects 
belonging to either the. Hitchiti or Alabama groups. Oconee, being 
a lower Creek town, would naturally belong to the first. Further 
evidence is furnished by the later associations of the Oconee people 
with the Mikasuki. 4 
The Tamali, so far as our knowledge of them extends, lived in 
southern Georgia near towns known to have belonged to the Hitchiti 
group, and they were among the first to move to Florida and lay 
the foundations of the Seminole Nation. In Spanish documents a 
tribe called Tama is mentioned which is almost certainly identical 
with this, 5 and it may be inferred that the last syllable represents 
the Hitchiti plural -ali. These facts all point to a Hitchiti connec- 
tion for the tribe. 
Bartram tells us that in his time the language of the Chiaha was 
entirely different from that of the Kasihta, w r hich w T e know to have 
been Muskogee, and in his list of ('reek towns he includes it among 
those speaking Stinkard. 3 As explained above, this latter fact 
suggests that Chiaha was a Muskhogean dialect, although not Mus- 
kogee. By some of the best-informed Creeks in Oklahoma I w r as 
told it w T as a dialect of Hitchiti, and that on account of the common 
language the Chiaha would not play against the Hitchiti in the 
tribal ball games, although they belonged to different fire clans, 
which ordinarily opposed each other at such times. The chief of the 
Mikasuki told me that Chiaha was the "foundation" of the towns 
called Osochi, Mikasuki, and Hotalgihuyana, and that anciently all 
spoke the same language. 
1 Almost confined to one letter published in facsimile, accompanied by its Spanish translation, by 
Buckingham Smith, in 1860. 
2 Bulletin 43, Bur. Amer. Ethn. The Washa and Chawasha have, however, since been identified as 
Chitimachan. (See Amer. Jour. Ling., I, no. 1, p. 49.) 
3 Bartram, Travels in North America, p. 462. 
* See p. 401. 
f> See p. 181 et seq. 
