swanton] EARLY HISTORY OF THE CREEK INDIANS 401 
considerations, all point to a connection with the Hitchiti-speaking 
peoples. 1 The language of the Mikasuki in Oklahoma is so close to 
that of the Hitchiti that they are commonly considered to be parts 
of one people; and the following story regarding them was told to 
me by Jackson Lewis, an old Hitchiti Indian, for whose opinions I 
have the greatest respect. He said that the name was properly 
Nikasuki. 
The Nikasukis are precisely the same as the Hitchiti. In early days some Hitchiti 
went hunting to a point where two rivers met. They found alligators there which 
they ate, and when they came back they reported that they were good food. They 
went many times, and finally they came to like this point of land so well that a num- 
ber of them settled there permanently. They had reported that alligators were as 
numerous and as easy to obtain as hogs (sulci in Hitchiti), so that the parent tribe 
called their settlement Hog-eaters, which is what Nikasuki means. 
We can not, however, concede the likelihood that n could so easily 
have been corrupted into m, since the latter appears in the early 
documents as far back as we can go. I have elsewhere quoted the 
opinion of the old Mikasuki chief relative to the distinction between 
his people and the Hitchiti, and their supposed relationship to the 
Chiaha. It must be remembered that the Chiaha anciently came 
away from the Yamasee, at a point not far from the earlier home 
of the Oconee, and it is quite possible that they recognized 
a closer connection with the Oconee Indians than with the 
Hitchiti proper. True, Mr. Penieres, subagent for Indian affairs 
in Florida, reported in 1821 that only a few straggling families 
of Chiaha were to be found in the peninsula; 2 but it is quite 
possible that these represented a much later immigration, the earlier 
colonists having already (by 1778) adopted the name Mikasuki. The 
first settlement of these "true Mikasuki," as I venture to call them, 
was, so far as we know, at Old Mikasuki, near the lake which bears 
their name, in Jefferson County, Florida. Later they, or part of them, 
moved to New Mikasuki, somewhere near Greenville, in Madison 
County. In 1823 the chief of this town was Tuskameha (Taski 
heniha). 3 It appears from Cohen, however, that at a somewhat ear- 
lier date the chief of the Mikasuki was named Tokos imala, called by 
the whites John Hicks, or Hext. 4 Tokos imala appears in a list of 
towns dated 1821 as chief of the town in the Alachua plains, 5 and 
he did not die until 1835; therefore when no town is enumerated 
in the Alachua plains in 1823 and no chief bearing the name," we 
are left to guess whether the town has been omitted or whether 
someone else appears in his place. It is probable that the Mikasuki 
> See p. 12. < Cohen, Notices of Florida, p. 641. 
» See p. 404. ' See p. 406. 
•Seep. 411. • List on pp. 411-412. 
148061°— 22 26 
