386 MYTHS OK THE CHEROKEE |i;th. ann.19 



1825. Tlicy perished in the smallpox epidemic whicii raAajicd the 

 frontier in 1840, iind their graves were still pointed out ut Tahlequah 

 in 1891. Shortly lief ore the outbreak of the Civil war there was a 

 large and prosperous Yuchi settlement on Cimarron river, in what was 

 afterward the Cherokee strip. 



Ramsey states that "a small tribe of Uchees" once occupied the 

 country near the mouth of the Hiwassee, and was nearlj' exterminated 

 in a desperate battle with the Cherokee at the Uchee Old Fields, in 

 Rhea (now Meigs) county, Tennessee, the few survivors retreating to 

 Florida, where they joined the Seminoles. ' There seems to be no other 

 authorit}^ for the statement. 



Another broken tribe incorporated in part with the Creeks and in 

 part with the Cherokee was that of the Na'^tsi, or Natchez, who origi- 

 nally occupied the territorj^ around the site of the present town of 

 Natchez in southern Mississippi, and exercised a leading influence over 

 all the tribes of the region. In consequence of a disastrous war with 

 the French in 1729-31 the tribe was disrupted, some taking refuge 

 with the Chickasaw, others with the Creeks, either then oi- later, while 

 others, in 1736, applied to the government of South Carolina for per- 

 mission to settle on the Savannah river. The request was evidentlv 

 granted, and we find the "Nachee" mentioned as one of the tribes 

 livini^ with the Catawba in 1743, but retaining their distinct languatje. 

 In consequence of having killed some of the Catawba in a drunken 

 quarrel they were forced to leave this region, and seem to have soon 

 afterward joined the Cherokee, as we find them twice mentioned in 

 connection with that tribe in 1755. This appears to be the last refer- 

 ence to them in the South Carolina records.^ 



Just here the CJherokee tradition takes them up, under the name of 

 Anin'tsi, abbreviated from Ani'-Na''tsi, the plural of Na''tsi. From a 

 chance coincidence with the word for pine tree, 'na'fsi', some English 

 speaking Indians have rendered this name as "Pine Indians." The 

 Cherokee generally agree that the Natchez came to them from South 

 Carolina, though some say that they came from the Creek country. It 

 is probable that the first lefugees were from Cai'olina and were joined 

 later by others from the Creeks and the Chickasaw. Bienville states, 

 in 1742, that some of them had gone to the Cherokee directly from 

 the Chickasaw when they found the latter too hard pressed by the 

 French to be able to care for them." They seem to have been regarded 

 by the Cherokee as a race of wizards and conjurers, a view which was 

 probably due in part to their peculiar religious rites and in part to the 

 interest which belonged to them as the remnant of an extirpated tribe. 

 Although we have no direct knowledge on the subject, there is every 



^ Ramsey. Annals of Tennessee, pp. HI, S4, 185:^. 



^Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East (bulletin of the Bureau of Ethnology;,]!. ,k:j, i,s94. 



3 Bienville, quoteil in Gayarre, Louisiana. 



