swAvn.N] EARLY HISTORY OF THE CREEK IXIHAXS 213 
tification, since the whole tribe may have received its name from the 
Tellico towns. This is a matter which does not, however, concern us 
here. The important question is, Were the Tali, Taligui, and Tali- 
couet identical 2 If so, then the Tali are at once established as Cher- 
okee. That the Cherokee country extended in later times as far 
as the great bend of the Tennessee is well known, but this fact neces- 
sarily tends to cast doubt upon any earlier tradition of such an exten- 
sion, since it assumes an intervening period of abandonment. 
Still it is interesting to know that there was such a tradition. In 
an article on "The Indians of Marshall County, Alabama," by Mr. 
O. D. Street, of Guntersville, Alabama, we read: 
The late Gen. S. K. Rayburn, who came to this country many years before the re- 
in. >val of the Cherokees to the West and was intimately acquainted with many of them, 
t< ild the writer that he had been informed by intelligent Cherokees that, many thousand 
moons before, their people had occupied all the country westward to Bear Creek and 
Duck River, but that on account of constant wars with the Chickasaws they had sought 
quiet by withdrawing into the eastern mountains, though they had never renounced 
their title to the country. 1 
Our investigation has now brought out the following facts. On 
early maps four or five small tribes appear on the middle course of 
Tennessee River. One of these, Tali, bears the same name as a tribe 
found by De Soto near the big bend of the same stream. Maps 
of a somewhat later date show the same number of towns, but they 
are not all identical. Three are, however, evidently Cherokee towns, 
and one, Taligui or Talicouet, is certainly the Cherokee town of 
Tellico (Talikwa). We also have traditional evidence that the Chero- 
kee were in possession at an early date of that region where the Tali 
lived. If the Taligui and Talicouet of later maps are the same as the 
Tali of earlier ones the identification is complete ; if there was merely a 
chance resemblance between the names they were, of course, distinct. 
The chances, in my opinion, are very much in favor of the identifica- 
tion. 
The name of another problematical tribe is spelled variously Kaski- 
nampo, Caskinampo, Kaskin8ba, Caskemampo, Cakinonpa, Kaki- 
nonba, Karkinonpols, Kasquinanipo. It is applied also to the 
Tennessee River. Coxe speaks of the Tennessee as a river "some call 
Kasqui, so named from a nation inhabiting a little above its mouth. " 2 
This spelling serves to connect the tribe with one mentioned by De 
Soto, and called in the writings of his expedition Casqui, 3 Icasqui, 4 or 
Casquin. 5 The Spaniards reached the principal town of Casqui about 
a week after they had crossed the Mississippi, while moving north. 
The Casqui were at that time engaged in war with another province 
or tribe known as Pacaha. In the principal town of Casqui near the 
' Trans. Ala. Hist. Soc., iv, p. 195. * Ibid., n, p. 26. 
- Coxe in French, Hist. Colls. La., 1850, p. 229. <• Shipp, De Soto and Fla., p. 408. 
» Kourne, N'arr. of De Soto, I, p. 12s; n, p. 138. 
