BWANTON] EAELlf IHSToItV OF THE CREEK INDIANS 305 
In 1603 some old soldiers reported to Gov. Ibarra, of Florida, 
"that 20 leagues from Orista [in this case probably Santa Elena] is 
a rieh people so civilized that they have their houses of hewn stone— 
that is, toward the northeast from whence they came, conquering 
those [Indians] of our lands." ' This may refer to Yuchi, although 
the mention of "hewn stone" houses tends to place the account 
under suspicion. Another possible reference to the influx of this 
band appears in a letter to the king from Gov. D. Alonso de 
Aranguiz y Cotes, dated September 8, 1662. He says: 
In a letter of Nov. 8, of the past year, 1661, I recounted to Y. M. how in the province 
of <i<>ale, near this presidio, there had entered some Indians who were said to be 
Chichumeoos which ate human flesh, and if I had not assisted in opposing their design 
tin;, would have destroyed it, as I had had news regarding others from infidel Indians 
who came fleeing from them, and as I saw that they would retire by the way they came 
I made examinations and inquiries in different directions until I took four prisoners 
near the province of A palachecole which is a hundred and eighty leagues distant from 
this presidio. Having sent infantry for the purpose I took some Indians of the Chisca 
Nation to serve as interpreters of their language because there was no one in these prov- 
inces who could understand them, and they said they were from Jacan, that when they 
retired from the province of Goale they went to that of Tama and to that of Catufa, 
and that there they wandered about in different bands, and the said Chisca Indians, 
after having explained what people they were said that very near the lands of those 
people there was only one very large river, on the middle course of which had fortified 
themselves a nation of white people who Warred with them continually and were 
approaching those provinces, and they do not know whether they are Spaniards or 
English.' 
The position which the Indians describe as that of their former home, 
along with their proximity to the white people, strongly suggests 
that occupied by the Rechahecrians on the James, yet it is strange 
that they should be unable to state whether their white neighbors 
were or were not English. These new arrivals are spoken of as if 
distinct from the "Chisca" — a fact tending to throw doubt on their 
Yuchean affinities; but it is probable that the term Chisca was 
limited by the governer to that band of Yuchi with which the 
Spaniards were familiar until then, those who had made their 
home on Choctawhatchee River. These invading "Chichumeeos" 
may have been the Indians who appear soon afterwards in the 
narratives of the early English explorers of the Carolina coast 
and the accounts of the South Carolina colonists, under the name 
of Westo. The members of the expedition which in 1670 made 
the lirst permanent settlement learned that these Westo had 
attacked and destroyed the Cusabo towns at St. Helena and 
Kiawa. They found that the coast Indians were mortally afraid of 
them and accused them of being cannibals, an accusation for which 
there appears to have been no justification. 2 
1 Lowcry. MSS. ■ See p. 6G. 
148063 22 ^0 
