414 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 73 
most of the inhabitants came from Hickory Ground, though a few 
were from Talwa lako. This is, perhaps, the most probable statement, 
since this man, Yonasi, was the oldest person belonging to that place. 
The name, as applied to a town, appears as early as 1800 in the diary 
of Manuel Garcia, a Spanish officer sent to receive the Apalachee 
fort from Bowles. 1 
But, as I have already said, the lack of permanence of most Semi- 
nole towns, and the frequent change of name which they underwent, 
has rendered it next to impossible to follow in any connected manner 
the history of more than a very few groups. At the same time the 
main outlines of Seminole history and the principal factors entering 
into it are quite evident. They were at base a portion of the Atsik- 
hata or non-Muskogee people of southern Georgia, around whom had 
gathered a still more numerous body of refugee Muskogee. These 
latter obscured their original character to such an extent that 
its basal separateness was usually unrecognized, and ultimately 
the language of the invaders overwhelmed that of the original 
settlers. This fact lends coherence to several early statements 
like that of Swan that "the Seminoles are the original stock of the 
Creek, but their language has undergone so great a change that it 
is hardly understood by the Upper Creeks, or even by themselves 
in general. It is preserved by many old people, and taught by 
women to the children as a kind of religious duty; but as they grow 
to manhood, they forget and lose it by the more frequent use of the 
modern tongue." 2 Of course, Swan misunderstood the situation. 
The original Creek language of which he speaks was Mikasuki, which 
in his time was already being crowded out by Muskogee or Creek 
proper. 
THE CHICKASAW 
The Chickasaw have had a simple, readily traceable history since 
the time when they first appear in our documents, and although 
from the point of view of the historian proper they might be made 
the subject of a long memoir, a short sketch will satisfy my present 
purpose. Our first notice of them is in the De Soto narratives and 
there we learn that they then possessed those great warlike qualities 
for which they were afterwards noted. De Soto passed the winter 
of 1540-41, from about Christmas to March 4, in what appears to 
have been the principal Chickasaw town. 3 On the evening of March 
3 the Spanish commander made a demand on the Chickasaw chief 
1 Archivo Nacional, Sevilla, copy in Edward E. Ayer Coll., Newberry Library. 
2 Swan in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v, p. 260. 
3 T. H. Lewis discusses the location of the Chickasaw towns which De Soto visited in the National 
Magazine, vol. 15, pp. 57-61, 1891-92, criticizing tho earlier investigations of Claiborne. The last word has 
evidently not been said on this subject. 
