SIOUAN 

 MOONEV 



.'] MIGRATION AND THE BUFFALO. 11 



names which occur in the narrative of his progress through the gulf 

 states. The inference wouhl be that the Muskliogean tribes were 

 already established in the southern region, where we have always 

 knoAvn them, before the Siouan tribes had fairly left the Mississippi. In 

 accordance with Osage tradition the emigrant tribes, after crossing' the 

 mountains, probably followed down the A^alleys of New river and the Big 

 Sandy to the Ohio, descended the latter to its month and there separated, 

 a part going up the Mississippi and Missouri, the others continuing their 

 course southward and southwestward. In their slow march toward the 

 setting- sun the Kwapa probably brought up the rear, as their name 

 lingered longest in the traditions of the Ohio tribes, and tliey were 

 yet in the vicinity of that stream when encountered by I)e Soto. 



The theory of a Siouan migration down the valley of the Big Sandy 

 is borne out by the fact that this stream was formerly known as the 

 Totteroy, a corruption of the Iroquois name for the Tutelo and other 

 Siouan tribes in the south. 



As to the causes of this prehistoric exodus, it is impossible to speak 

 positively. Hale assumes that the Siouan tribes followed the buffalo 

 as it gradually receded westward, but tliis i)osition is untenable. As 

 just shown, some of these tribes were beyond the Mississippi at least 

 350 years ago, while the disappearance of the buffalo from the east 

 was not accomplished until within the present century. The savage 

 on foot, and armed only with bow and arrows, could never exterminate 

 the game over any large area. It required the gun, the horse, and the 

 railroad of civilization to effect tiie wholesale slaughter that has swept 

 from the face of the earth one of the noblest of American quadrui>eds. 

 There is abundant testimony to the fact that buffalo were numerous in 

 the piedmont region of Virginia and Carolina at least as late as 1730, 

 and in Ohio valley and Tennessee until after the close of the French 

 and Indian war, and did not linally disappear from this central basin 

 until 1810. We must seek other reasons than the disappearance of the 

 game from what was all a wilderness, keeping in mind at the same time 

 the Inherent unrest of savages and especially of the Siouan tribes. 

 The most probable cause of this great exodus was the pressure fi'om 

 the north and from the south of hostile tribes of alien lineage, leaving 

 to the weaker Siouan tribes no alternative but to tlee or to remain and 

 be crushed betAveen the millstones. They chose to abandon the country 

 and retreated across the mountains, the only directi(ni in which a retreat 

 was open to them. 



The Muskhogean tribes all claim to have come into the gulf states 

 from beyond the Mississippi, and the tradition is clearest among those 

 of them — the Choctaw and Chickasaw — who maybe sui)posed to have 

 crossed last. (Adair, 1 ; Gatschet, Legend, 1 ; see also, Bartrani, Travels, 

 and Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country.) As they advanced they 

 came at last into collision with the Timuquanan and ITchean tribes of 

 Florida and Georgia, and then began the long struggle, which ended 



