216 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [boll. 73 
on tlic Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Alabama Rivers, and in the neighboring 
country, and the latter those on the Chattahoochee and Flint. The 
"Upper Creeks" of Bartram are the Creeks proper, while his "Lower 
Creeks" are the Seminole. Sometimes a triple division is made into 
Upper Creeks, Middle Creeks, and Lower Creeks, the first including 
those on the Coosa River, the Middle Creeks those on and near the 
Tallapoosa, and the last as in the previous classification. The first 
are also called Coosa or Abihka, the second Tallapoosa, and the last 
Coweta. The traditions of nearly all, so far as information has come 
down to us, point to an origin hi the west, but these will be taken up 
in a separate volume when we come to treat of Creek social organiza- 
tion. That the drift of population throughout most of this area had 
been from west to east can hardly be doubted, but it is plain that prac- 
tically all of the Muskogee tribes had completed the movement before 
De Soto's time, though all can not be identified hi the narratives of his 
expedition. The prime factors in the formation of the confederacy 
were the Kasihta and Coweta, which I will consider first. 
The Kasihta 
The honorary name of this tribe m the Creek Confederacy was 
Kasihta lako, "Big Kasihta." According to the earliest form of the 
Creek migration legend that is available — that related to Governor 
Oglethorpe by Chikilli in 1735 — the Kasihta and Coweta came from 
the west "as one people," but hi time those dwelling toward the east 
came to be called Kasihta and those to the west Coweta. 1 This an- 
cient unity of origin appears to have been generally admitted down 
to the present time. According to John Goat, an aged Tulsa Indian, 
they were at first one town, and when they separated the pot of 
medicine which had been buried under their busk fire was dug up 
and its contents divided betw r een them. He also maintained that 
anciently Kasihta was the larger and more important of the two, 
and others state the same, while on the point of numbers, they are 
confirmed by the census of 1832. 2 Oftener the Coweta were given 
precedence. 
The first appearance of the Kasihta hi documentary history is, I 
believe, hi the De Soto chronicles as the famous province of Cofita- 
chequi, 3 Cutifachiqui, 4 Cofitachyque, 4 Cofitachique, 5 or Cofaciqui. 6 
Formerly it was generally held that this was Yuchi. The name has, 
however, a Muskhogean appearance, and Dr. F. G. Speck, our leading 
Yuchi authority, is unable to find any Yuchi term resembling 
it. In fact, with one doubtful exception, he is unable to discover 
i Gatschet, Creek Mig. Leg., I, pp. 244-251. » Ibid., I, p. 69. 
'Seep. 430. * Ibid., ii, p. 11. 
s Kourne, Narr. of De Soto, u, p. 93. « Garcilasso in Shipp, De Soto and Fla., p. 352. 
