SwANTONj INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTEim UNITED STATES 15 



its marked Southwestern affinities shows that at some time in the 

 remote past it was of vastly more significance. 



Like the main mountain masses, the low plateaus flanking the 

 Appalachians were occupied by peoples clearly in a state of flux. 

 This is particularly true of the low plateau on the west. The 

 marginal portion of it along the Tennessee was occupied at various 

 times by bands of Chickasaw, Yuchi, Muskhogeans, and, in very 

 late times, by Cherokee. The most attractive section was the lime- 

 stone-underlain Nashville Basin, but this was occupied and abandoned 

 repeatedly. There is circumstantial evidence that the Yuchi once 

 lived here. At a later date the Kaskinampo, probably of Muskhogean 

 connection, supplanted them and shortly after white contact we find 

 the Shawnee in possession. A part of these Shawnee returned at a 

 later time. It is not a little surprising to discover that the Lexington 

 Plain, the "blue grass country," was not occupied for any con- 

 siderable period by any body of Indians in the historic era. Chartier's 

 band of Shawnee, who lived for a few years in a town in the present 

 Clark County, Ky., on their way to and from the Creek Nation, consti- 

 tutes almost the sole exception. 



The Piedmont Plateau north of Savannah Kiver was occupied 

 almost exclusively, in times of which we have intimate knowledge, 

 by tribes of the Siouan linguistic stock, and it is evident that many, 

 if not most, of these had worked their way into the territory from 

 some section farther inland shortly before the advent of the whites. 

 If so, they must have come in at least two distinct bodies, because the 

 language spoken by the Siouans of Virginia was markedly distinct 

 from that of the Siouans of the Carolinas. Between Point Lookout 

 and Sewee Bay the latter reached the coast, but precisely here off- 

 shore bars and" islands furnish less protection to shore dwellers and 

 there is proportionately less temptation to a littoral life. Of the 

 remaining tribes, some lived well inland on the Plateau; others at 

 or near the fall line in order to enjoy the fish to be obtained there. 

 Many tribes whose towns were at some distance resorted to this 

 place when the fish were running. One section of this line, between 

 the Cape Fear and Nottoway, had been preempted by intrusive 

 Iroquoian tribes, the Tuscarora, Meherrin, and Nottoway, while the 

 Coree and Neusiok possibly represented an extension of them to the 

 coast. 



The greater part of the embayed section of the Coastal Plain, 

 from Pamlico Sound to the Potomac Kiver, was in the hands of 

 Algonquians, those in Virginia forming the Powhatan tribe or con- 

 federation. Here the density of population was particularly great. 



Southward, beyond the Savannah, the balance between life on the 

 coast and life in the interior again presents a problem. In the 



