192 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.a.nn.19 



estimated all the way from "four leagues, more or less" (Gareilaso) to " every day 

 seven or eight leagues" (Elvas). In another place the Elvas chronicler states that 

 they usually made five or six leagues a day through inhabited territories, but that in 

 crossing uninhabited regions — as that between Canasagua anil (!hiaha, they marched 

 every day as far as possible for fear of running out of provisions. One of the most 

 glaring discrepancies appears in regard to the tlistance between Chiaha and Coste. 

 Both the Portuguese writer and Garcilaso put Ohiaha upon an island — a statement 

 which in itself is at variance with any present conditions, — but while the former 

 makes the island a fraction over a league in length the latter says that it was five 

 leagues long. The next town was Coste, which Garcilaso puts immediately at the 

 lower end of the same island while the Portuguese Gentleman represents it as seven 

 days distant, although he himself has given the island the shorter length. 



Notwithstanding a deceptive appearance of exactness, especially in the Elvas and 

 Ranjel narratives, which have the form of a daily journal, tlie conclusion is irresist- 

 ible that much of the record was made after dates had been forgotten, and the 

 sequence of e\ents had become confused. Considering all the difficulties, dangers, 

 and uncertainties that constantly beset the expedition, it would be too uuicii to expect 

 the regularity of a ledger, and it is more probable that the entries were made, not 

 from day to day, but at irregular intervals as opportunity presented at the several 

 resting places. The story must be interpreted in the light of our later knowledge of 

 the geography and ethnology of the country traversed. 



Each of the three princiiial narratives has passed through translations and later 

 editions of more or less doubtful fidelity to the original, the English edition in some 

 cases being itself a translation from an earlier French or Dutch translation. English 

 speaking historians of the expedition have usually drawn their material from one or 

 the other of these translations, without knowledge of the original language, of the 

 etymologies of the Indian names or the relations of- the various tribes mentioned, or 

 of the general system of Indian geographic nomenclature. One of the greatest errors 

 has been the attempt to give in every case a fixed local habitation to a name which 

 in some instances is not a proper name at all, and in others is merely a descriptive 

 term or a duplicate name occurring at several places in the same tribal territory. 

 Thus Tali is simply the Creek word tnliia, town, and not a definite place name as 

 represented by a mistake natural in dealing through interpreters \vith an unknown 

 Indian language. Tallise and Tallimuchase are respectively "Old town" and "New 

 town" in Creek, and there can be no certainty that the same names were applied to 

 the same places a century later. Canasagua is a corruption of a Cherokee name 

 which occurs in at least three other places in the old Cherokee country in addition 

 to the one mentioned in the narrative, and almost every old Indian local name 

 was thus repeated several times, as in the case of such common names as Short 

 creek, AVhitewater, Richmond, or Lexington among ourselves. The fact that only 

 one name of the set has been retained on the map does not prove its identity with the 

 town of the old chronicle. Again such loose terms as "a large river," "a beautiful 

 valley," have been assumed to mean something more definitely localized tluui the 

 wording warrants. The most common error in translation has been the rendering 

 of the Spanish "despoblado" as "desert." There are no deserts in the Gulf states, 

 and the word means simply an uninhabited region, usually the debatable strip 

 between two tribes. 



There have been many attempts to trace De Soto's route. As nearly every historian 

 who has written of the southern states has given attention to this subject it is 

 unnecessary to enumerate them all. Of some thirty works consulted l:)y the author, 

 in addition to the original narratives already mentioned, not more than two or three 

 can be considered as speaking with any authority, the rest simply copying from these 

 without investigation. The first attempt to locate the route definitely was made 

 by Meek (Romantic Passages, etc.) in 1839 (reprinted in 1857), his conclusi(jns being 



