378 MYTHS OF THK CHEROKEE [f.th.ann.19 



of the oldest iiiid large^;t of thr Clii'i'okcc towns, ;uid wlicii AN'utl'ord 

 visited it as a boy he found the trail leading;- to it worn so deep in places 

 that, althoujih on horseback, he coidd touch the ground with his feet 

 on each side. 



There is a story, told by Watford as a fact, of a Shawano who had 

 been a prisoner there, but had escaped to his people in the north, and 

 after the peace between the two tribes wandered back into the neioii- 

 borhood on a hunting trip. While standing on a hill overlooking the 

 valley he saw several Cherokee on an opposite hill, and called out to 

 them, "'Doyou still own Cowee?" They shouted in reply, "Yes; we 

 own it yet." Back came the answer from the Shawano, who wanted 

 to encourage them not to sell any more of their lands, "Well, it's the 

 best town of the Cherokee. It's a good country, hold on to it." 



104. THE EASTERN TRIBES 



Besides the Iroquois and Shawano, the Cherokee remember also the 

 Delawares, Tuscarora, Catawba, and Chei-aw as tribes to the east or 

 north with which thev formerly had relations. 



The Cherokee call the Delawares Anakwan'kl, in the singular 

 Akwan'^ki, a derivative formed according to usual Cherokee phonetic 

 modification from Wapanaq'ki, " Easterners," the generic name by 

 whicli the Delawares and their nearest kindred call themselves. 



In the most ancient tradition of the Delawares the Cherokee ai"e 

 called Talega, Tallige, Tallige-wi, etc' In later Delaware tradition 

 they are called Kitu'hwa, and again we find the two tribes at war. for 

 which their neighbors are held responsible. According to the Dela- 

 ware account, the Iroquois, in one of their forays to the south, killed 

 a Cherokee in the woods and purposely left a Delaware war club 

 near the body to make it appear that the work had been done bj' men 

 of that tribe. The Cherokee found the body and the club, and natur- 

 ally supposing that the murder had ))een committed by the Delawares, 

 they suddenly attacked the latter, the result being a long and bloody 

 war between the two tribes.^ At this time, i. e., about the end of the 

 seventeenth century, it appears that a part at least of the Cherokee 

 lived on the waters of the Upper Ohio, where the Delawares made 

 continual inroads upon them, finally driving them from the region 

 and seizing it for themselves about the j^ear 1708.^ A century ago the 

 Delawares used to tell how their warriors would sometimes mingle in 

 di.sgui.se with the Cherokee at tlunr night dances until the opportunity 

 came to strike a sudden blow and he ofl' l)ef ore their enemies recovered 

 from the surprise. 



Later there seems to have Vjeen peace until war was again brought on 



1 Brinton, Leiiape and Their Legends, p. 130 et passim, 1885; Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroijuois, pp. 147, 305 

 et passim, 1847; Heckewelder, Indian Nations, pp. 47-50, ed.l87(i. 

 " Heckewelder, op. cit., p. .54. 

 3 Loskiel, History of the [Moravian] Mission, pp. VM-V2~; London, 1794. 



