176 BELIEFS AND USAGES OF CHICKASAW (ETH. ANN. 44 
and had to fight their way through, but they can not give the names of the 
people they fought with while travelling. 
They were informed, when they left the West, that they might look for whites ; 
that they would come from the East; and they were to be on their guard, and 
to avoid the whites, lest they should bring all manner of vice among them. 
This is of course an accretion. It differs from the narratives quoted 
by Adair in carrying the Chickasaw migration east of their later set- 
tlements before their final location in Mississippi. Whatever truth 
there may be in this there is every reason to believe that at one time 
a considerable portion of the nation did live at the Chickasaw Old - 
Fields on the north bank of the Tennessee River in Madison County, 
Ala. It is interesting to compare the way in which the Chickasaw 
here express their friendship for the Kasihta with the way in which 
in the migration legends of the Creeks the Kasihta express their 
friendship for the Chickasaw. The Chickasaw represent the Kasihta 
as an offshoot from themselves, while the Kasihta introduce the 
Chickasaw as one of the original tribes from which the Creeks were 
descended and associate them with three tribes which, so far as we 
know, always have been Creek. 
In a speech made by the Kasihta chief Tussekiah Mico in the 
Coweta Square, October 28, 1797, he says that the Kasihta, Coweta, 
and Chickasaw were all of one fire, and he calls the last mentioned 
“vounger brothers” of all the other Creeks, including the Abihka.*® 
Almost the only late versions of this legend are the ones given by 
Warren and are as follows: 
Molly Gunn, a Chickasaw woman, grandmother of Cyrus Harris, who became 
Governor of the Chickasaws, in the Indian Territory, related to him the 
Chickasaw tradition of that tribe’s journeying to Mississippi. Mr. Harris gave 
the author a manuscript copy of this tradition, translated from the language 
of Molly Gunn. He wrote that “she talked all Chickasaw.” It reads as follows: 
“The Chickasaws started east carrying with them a long pole, and at night 
the pole was stuck in the ground, erect. Next morning the pole would be 
found leaning towards the east, which they considered their guide. and would, 
from day to day, follow, or travel in the direction that the pole lent. Each 
morning this was continued until they reached the place that is known as the 
‘Chickasaw Old Fields... By some it was called ‘Old Town.’ When they 
reached that place, at night, as usual, the pole was stuck in the ground as erect 
as they could possibly put it. On the following morning the leader of the 
party rose early as usual (the Chickasaws were early risers in those days). On 
examining the pole he found it standing in the exact position that it was left 
[in] the night before. He proclaimed to the party that they had reached their 
future home, and the party settled down and made that place their home. 
After this, the Creek Indians occasionally made war against the Chickasaws, 
but were always repulsed and driven away. They were after this encroached 
upon by the French, . . . and several battles were fought; but the Chickasaws 
had a very large war dog that always gave them warning when the enemy 
was approaching, and, in the heat of battle kept ahead of the Chickasaws, mak- 
7 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, 1, pp. 265-268. 8 Ga. Hist. Soc. Colls., vol, 1x, p. 213. 
