Iti MYTHS OF THK CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 



nK'diuiii of c'oiiiiminicatiou iunoiij;- all tlie tribes of the Gulf states, as 

 far north as the mouth of the Ohio {2). Within this area many of the 

 tribes were commonly known under Choctaw names, even though of 

 widely difl'ering linguistic stocks, and if such a name existed' for the 

 Cherokee it must undoul)tedly have been communicated to the first 

 Spanish explorers by De Soto's interpreters. This theory is borne 

 out by their Iroquois (Mohawk) name, Oyata'ge/ronoi!', as given by 

 Hewitt, signifying ''inhabitants of the cave country," the Allegheny 

 region being peculiarly a cave country, in which "rock shelters,'' con- 

 taining numerous traces of Indian occupancy, are of frequent occur- 

 rence. Their Catawba name also, Manteraii, as given b_y Gatschet, 

 signifying "coming out of the ground," seems to contain the same 

 reference. Adair's attempt to connect the name Cherokee with their 

 word ior &re, atsila, is an error founded upon imperfect knowledge of 

 the language. 



Among other synonyms for the tribe are Rickahockan, or Recna- 

 hecrian, the ancient Powhatan name, and Tallige', or Tallige'wi, the 

 ancient name used in the Walam Olum chronicle of the Lenape'. Con- 

 cerning both the application and the etymology of this last name there 

 has been much dispute, but there seems no reasonable doubt as to the 

 identity of the people. 



Linguistically the Cherokee belong to the Iroquoian stock, the 

 relationship having been suspected by Barton over a century ago, and 

 by Gallatin and Hale at a later period, and definitely established by 

 Hewitt in 1887.' While there can now be no question of the connec- 

 tion, the marked lexical and grammatical differences indicate that the 

 sepaiution nuist have occurred at a very early period. As is usually 

 the case with a large tribe occupying an extensive territory, the lan- 

 guage is spoken in sevf ral dialects, the principal of which may. for 

 want of other names, be conveniently designated as the Eastern, Middle, 

 and Western. Adair's classification into " Ayrate" (e'ladi), or low, and 

 "Ottare" (a' fall), or mountainous, must be rejected as imperfect. 



The Eastern dialect, formerly often called the Lower Cherokee 

 dialect, was originally spoken in all the towns upon the waters of the 

 Keowee and Tugaloo, head-streauas of Savannah river, in South Caro- 

 lina and the adjacent portion of Georgia. Its chief peculiarity is a 

 rolling /■, which takes the place of the I of the other dialects. In 

 this dialect the tribal ntime is Tsa'nigi', which the English settlers of 

 Carolina corrupted to Cherokee, while the Spaniards, advancing from 

 the south, became better familiar with the other form, which they 

 wrote as Chalaque. Owing to their exposed frontier position, adjoin- 

 ing the white settlements of Carolina, the Cherokee of this division 



1 Barton, Benj. S., New Views on the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America, p. xlv, passim; 

 Phila., 1797; Gallatin, Albert, Synopsis of Indian Tribes. Trans. American Antiquarian Society, ii, p. 

 91; Cambridge, 1836; Hewitt, J. N. B., The Cherokee an Iroquoian Language, Washington, 1887 (MS 

 in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology). 



