i6 



DICTIONARY OF INDIANS. 



Cherokee. — Continued. 



derivation is not possible, however, as 

 the leading part of atsila always re- 

 mains tsil, never changing to isal; 

 while, as regards the latter part of 

 his statement, they paid no greater 

 honors to fire than to water, thunder, 

 or any other of their chief daimons. 

 Morgan incorrectly renders the word 

 " great people." A more probable 

 derivation seems to be from sdhallikT , 

 an "upland field," as distinguished 

 from kl&kes, a bottom field along a 

 stream; the Cherokee being pectil- 

 iarly an upland tribe, it is possible 

 that they so designated their country 

 in their first intercourse with the 

 whites. The Iroquois called them 

 Oyada-ono, or "cave people," also 

 in allusion to the broken, mountain- 

 ous nature of their country; while 

 the Algonquian tribes generally knew 

 them as Kittuwa, which Brinton in- 

 correctly thinks may be derived from 

 a Delaware term signifying " people 

 of the great wilderness," while Hecke- 

 welder also makes it a Delaware word, 

 probably meaning "travelers" or 

 "wanderers," but which the Chero- 

 kee themselves say is derived from 

 the name of one of their principal 

 ancient settlements, Kituhwu (q. v.). 

 The fact that the Cherokee speak 

 an Iroquoian language points to 

 an ancient connection with the Iro- 

 quois tribes, and all the evidence 

 goes to show that the Cherokee are 

 identical with the people known tra- 

 ditionally to the Delawares as Talli- 

 gewi. According to tradition, the 

 Talligewi, at the period when the 

 Delawares and Iroquois first arrived 

 in the eastern part of the United 

 States, were a powerful people, occu- 

 pying the entire valley of the Ohio 

 and Alleghany rivers. After a long 

 war, in the course of which they built 

 the numerous ancient earthworks of 

 that region for their defense, they 

 were finally driven out by the invad- 

 ing Delawares and Iroquois and fled 

 toward the south. In the Walaiu 

 Oluin, the national legend of the Dela- 

 wares, there are numerous references 

 to these Talligewi. According to this 

 authority, they were driven south- 

 ward before the separation of the 

 Nanticoke and Shawnee from the 

 parent Lenape, and long afterward — • 

 even stibsequent to the appearance of 

 the whites on the eastern coast — • 

 there is a notice of a war carried on by 

 the Delawares against the Talligewi 

 and Coweta (Creeks) in the south. In 

 the name Talligewi, frequently writ- 

 ten Alligewi, the final wiis merely the 



Algonquian plural ending, without 

 which the word becomes Tallige, 

 which strikingly resembles Tsalaki, 

 the name which the Cherokee apply 

 to themselves. Heckewelder, the 

 great authority on the Delawares, 

 was of the opinion that Talligewi was 

 a foreign word adopted by that tribe. 

 According to the tradition of the 

 Cherokee as given by Haywood (Nat. 

 and Aborig. Hist. Tenn.), they claim 

 that "they came from the upper part 

 of the Ohio, where they erected the 

 inotmds on Grave creek, and that they 

 removed hither (to East Tennessee) 

 from the country where Monticello is 

 situated." The large mound near 

 Monticello, Virginia, mentioned by 

 Jefferson as well known to the south- 

 ern Indians, may have some connec- 

 tion with this tradition. Brinton, 

 after summing up the arguments in 

 favor of the identity of the Cherokee 

 with the Alligewi, concludes with 

 these words: "Name, location and 

 legends, therefore, combine to iden- 

 tify the Cherokees, or Tsalaki, with the 

 Tallike; and this is as much evidence 

 as we can expect to produce in such 

 researches." 



The Cherokee were formerly the 

 leading tribe of the southern states, 

 and are now the most advanced and 

 prosperous in the country, and second 

 only to the Sioux, and perhaps the 

 Ojibwa, in population. They pos- 

 sessed an extensive territory cen- 

 tering in the southern Allcghanies and 

 embracing the mountainovis portions 

 of southern Virginia, North Carolina,, 

 South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, 

 and Tennessee, and they also set 

 up a claim to the whole of Ken- 

 tucky and West Virginia. According 

 to tradition they once lived in Vir- 

 ginia, and they are probably the 

 Rickohockans or Rechahecrians men- 

 tioned by early writers as living in the 

 mountains of that state, and who, in 

 1658, overran the lowlands as far as 

 Richmond. They formerly extended 

 farther down toward the coast on 

 their southeastern frontier, btit were 

 driven back by the Creek tribes within 

 the historic period. Their principal 

 settlements were on the headwaters 

 of Savannah and Tennessee rivers, 

 where they are said to have had at 

 one time sixty settlements. Those liv- 

 ing on the Savannah were called 

 Erati Tsalaki, or Lower Cherokee, 

 while those on the waters of the 

 Tennessee were known as Awtali Tsdl- 

 aki, or Upper Cherokee (Otali), and 

 spoke a different dialect. On the 

 waters of the Tuckaseegee river, be- 



