208 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 73 
Hawkins to have spoken a dialect distinct from Muskogee. 1 These 
were the Tuskegee, 2 called by Taitt northern Indians. On in- 
quiring of some of the old Tuskegee Indians in Oklahoma regarding 
their ancient speech I found that they claimed to know of it, and I 
obtained the following words, said to have been among those 
employed by the ancient people. Some of these are used at the pres- 
ent day, and the others may be nothing more than archaic Muskogee, 
but they perhaps have some value for future students. 
lutcu'a, a mug. 
ki'las, to break. 
aia'lito, I will be going; modern form, aibastce'. 
tcibuksa'ktce', come on and go with us! (where one person comes to a crowd of people 
and asks them to go with him ). 
ili-hu'ko-lutci, hen (-utci, little). 
talu'sutci, chicken. 
ilisai'dja, pot; modern form, lihai'a la'ko. 
apa'la, on the other side; modern form, tapa'la. 
wilika/pka, I am going on a visit; modern form, tcukupileidja-lani. 
The town Tasqui encountered by De Soto between Tali and Coosa 
was perhaps occupied by Tuskegee. Ranjel is the only chronicler 
who mentions it, and it can not have impressed the Spaniards as a 
place of great importance. 3 In 1567 Vandera was informed by 
some Indians and a soldier that beyond Satapo, the farthest point 
reached by the Pardo expedition, two days' journey on the way to 
Coosa, was a place called Tasqui, and a little beyond another known 
as Tasquiqui. 4 The second of these was certainly, the other prob- 
ably, a Tuskegee town. It is possible that a fission was just taking 
place in this tribe. 
Later in the seventeenth century, when English and French began 
to penetrate into the region, we find the Tuskegee divided into two 
or more bands, the northernmost on the Tennessee River. Coxe, 
who gives their name under the distorted form Kakigue, places 
these latter upon an island in the river. 5 While they are noticed in 
documents and on maps at rare intervals (I find the forms Cacougai, 
Cattougui, Caskighi), the clearest light upon their later history 
and ultimate fate is thrown by Mr. Mooney in his "Myths of the 
Cherokee." 6 He says: 
Another refugee tribe incorporated partly with the Cherokee and partly with the 
Creeks was that of the Taskigi, who at an early period had a large town of the same 
name on the south side of the Little Tennessee, just above the mouth of Tellico, 
> Taitt in Trav. in Amer. Col., p. 541 ; Hawkins, see p. 210. To-day some Indians repeat a tradition to the 
effect that the Tuskegee are a branch of the Tulsa, but this is evidently a late fabrication based on the 
friendship which in later years has subsisted between these two towns. 
2 This name perhaps contains the Alabama and Choctaw word for warrior, t&ska. 
a Bourne, Narr. of De Soto, n, p. HI. 
* Ruidiaz, La Florida, n, p. 485. 
» French, Hist. Colls. La., 1850, p. 230. 
1 19th Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethn., pp. 388-389. 
