swanton] EARL"? HISTORY OF THE CREEK INDIANS 265 
failure of their attempt they also came to be called Tallahassee ("Old town " people), 
and later on Tallahasutci ("Little Old town" peopl< 
Gatschet, however, says that the name "probably refers to water 
lilies covering the surface of a pond," the seeds of which were eaten 
by the natives.' 
The Atasi 
Atasi, in its later years, was on close terms of intimacy with 
Tukabahchee, of which it was said to be a branch. While this may 
have been the case, its independent history extends back to very early 
times. Spanish documents of the last decade of the sixteenth century 
mention a town caDed Otaxe (Otashe), in the northernmost parts of 
the province of Guale. On a few maps, representing conditions before 
the Yamasee war, Atasi appears among the towns on Ocmulgee River. 
It is perhaps the "Awhissie" of Lamhatty, laid down midway 
between the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. 2 On later maps it 
appears on the Chattahoochee between the Kolomi and Tuskegee, 
but this position was probably occupied for only a few years before 
a permanent retirement was effected to the Tallapoosa. Another 
location is, however, given by Hawkins on the authority of an old 
Kasihta chief, Tussikaia miko, as on a creek bearing its name, 
near the village of Apatai (see p. 223) . 3 A French writer of the middle 
of the eighteenth century declares that the Creeks on Tallapoosa 
River were formerly under absolute monarchs who resided at Atasi 
"and bore the same name" as the town. He adds: "After the death 
of the last of these princes there was no particular chief in this village, 
but the chief of war commands. They say that this chief has gone 
into the sky to see his ancestors, and that he has assured them that 
he will return." 4 This perhaps marks nothing more than a shift of 
the chieftainship from a peace to a war clan. 
At least three successive places were occupied by the Atasi on 
Tallapoosa River. The first was some miles above the sharp bend 
in the river at Tukabahchee, where Bartram found them in 1777-78. 5 
The second was five miles below Tukabahchee on the south side of 
the river, 6 and the third a few miles higher on the north side near the 
mouth of Calebee Creek. The name appears in the census lists 
of 1738, 1750, 1760, and 1761. 7 On the last mentioned date James 
McQueen and T. Perryman were the officially recognized traders. 7 
i Gatechel in Misc. Colls. Ala. Hist. Soc., i, p. 408. 
: Amor. Anthrop.,n.S. vol.X, p. 569. 
» Ga. Hist. Soc. Colls., ix, p. 70. 
«MS.,AyerLib. 
'■> Bartram, Travels, p. 448etseq. 
■ Ga. Hist. Soc. CoUs.,ix, pp. 40,46. "On the opposite hank [from Mr. Bailey's house] formerly stood 
the old town Ohassee [< >ttassee], a beautifui rich level plane surrounded with hills, to the north, it was 
formerly a canebrake, the river, makes a curve round it to the south, so that a small fence on the hill 
side across would enclose it."— p. 40. 
' MSS., Aver Lib.; Miss I'rov. Arch., i, p. 95; Ga. Col. Docs., vra, p. 523. 
