MOONEY] THE SOTTHERN TKIHES 387 



reason to suppose that tlie two tribes had had eoiimniiiieatioii witli each 

 Other long liet'ore the period of the Natchez war. 



AceordiiiiJ' to the statement of James Wattord, wlio was born in iSOfi 

 near the site of .Clarlcesville, Ga. . when this region was still Indian 

 country, the "Xotchees" had thiMr town on the north l)anlv of Hiwas- 

 see, just ahove Peachtree creeiv, on tlie spot where a Baptist mission 

 was esta))lished by the Rev. Evan Jones in 1821, a few miles above the 

 present ^Murphy, Cherokee county, Noi'th Carolina. On his mother's 

 side he had himself a strain of Natchez blood. His grandmother had 

 told him that when she was a young woman, pei'haps iihout ITr)."), she 

 once. had occasion to go to this town on some business, which she was 

 obliged to transact through an interpreter, as the Natchez had been 

 there so short a time that only one or two spoke any CiuM-okee. They 

 were all in the one town, which the Cherokee called Gwarga'hi, "Frog 

 place.'" but he was unable to say whether or not it had a townhou.se. 

 In 1824:, as one of the ci>nsus takers for the Cherokee Nation, he went 

 over the same section and found the Natchez then living jointly with 

 the Cherokee in a town called GiVlani'vi at the junction of Brasstown 

 and Gumlog creeks, tributary to Hiwassee, some 6 miles southeast of 

 their former location and close to the Georgia line. The removal may 

 have been due to th(> recent establishment of the mission at the old 

 place. It was a large settlement, made up about equally from the two 

 tribes, but l»y this time the Natchez were not distinguishable in dress 

 or general appearance from the others, and nearly all spoke broken 

 Cherokee, while still retaining their own language. As most of the 

 Indians had come under Christian influences so far as to have quit 

 dancing, there was no townhouse. Harry Smith, who was born about 

 1820. father of the late cliief of the East Cherokee, also remembers 

 them as living on Hiwassee and calling themselves Na''tsi. 



Ganse'^ti, already mentioned, states that when he was a 1)oy the 

 Natchez were scattered among the Cherokee setth-ments along the 

 upper part of Hiwassee, extending down into Tennes.see. They had 

 then no separate townhouses. Some of them, at least, had vnmo up 

 from the Creeks, and spoke Creek and Cherokee, as well as tiieir own 

 language, wliicli he could not understand, although familiar with both 

 of the others. 'I'liey wei-e great dance leaders, which agrees with their 

 traditional I'eputation for ceremonial and s(H'i-(>t knowledge. They 

 went west with the Cherokee at the linal removal <if tlie tribe to Indian 

 Territory in 1838. In 18!t(» there was a small settlement on Illinois 

 river a few miles south of Tahle(|uali, Cherokee Nation, several per- 

 sons in which still spoke their own language. Some of these may have 

 come with the Crei'ks. as l)y an agreement between Creeks and Chero- 

 ke<> about the timt> of the Kemo\al it had l)een arranged that citizens of 

 either tribe living within llie bouiidaiies claimcil by the other might 

 remain without i|uestion if they so elected. There are still several 



