SWANTONJ INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 19 



cratic control of one chief. The economic life was based mainly upon 

 fish, shellfish, and the gathering of certain roots. It seems to have 

 owed its origin in part to the pressure of alien peoples toward the 

 north, in part to trade, and in part probably to rather recent migra- 

 tion from the vicinity of the great inland nations. On other sections 

 of the coast, such as the northern Gulf shore from the mouth of the 

 Mississippi to the Apalachicola, in southeastern Florida, and on the 

 coasts of South Carolina and most of North Carolina, only small 

 tribes were to be found, often tribes confined to a single town. 



Upon the whole, we may say that the tendency of the coast peoples 

 was toward small units which only sporadically were gathered into 

 larger bodies. Inland it was quite the other way. Along Yazoo 

 River, and in parts of Louisiana, there were a few so-called "tribes" 

 of insignificant proportions, but some of these, like the Taposa, 

 Ibitoupa, and Avoyel, appear to have been temporary offshoots of 

 the large nations ; others, such as the Yazoo, Koroa, Tiou, Taensa, and 

 Chakchiuma, vestiges of people once very much greater. In southern 

 Georgia there were a number of small tribal groups, but they were 

 united into the Creek Confederation at such an early period that we 

 cannot speak with certainty regarding their original condition. The 

 Siouan tribes of the Piedmont country were also for the most part 

 small, but a tendency is evident among these to form larger groups or 

 confederations such as the Manahoac and Monacan Confederacies, 

 and the associations of tribes at Fort Christanna, and on the upper Pee 

 Dee, while there is some reason to think that many of the southern 

 Siouans had broken away from the Catawba at an earlier period. 

 The greater part of the Southeastern interior, however, was occupied 

 by large tribes or confederacies, including the Tuscarora, Catawba, 

 Yamassee, Apalachee, Creeks, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, 

 Natchez, and Caddo. The Utina and Potano of Florida might also 

 be included as well as the Quapaw and Shawnee. Four of these, to- 

 gether with the later-formed Seminole, were perpetuated to modern 

 times as the Five Civilized Tribes, and existed as small republics 

 under the suzerainty of the white man until the beginning of the 

 twentieth century. 



A word might be said regarding the position of our tribes rela- 

 tively to the life zones. The Cherokee and some western Siouan 

 tribes of Virginia were the only ones occupying the tongue of the 

 Transitional Zone, which comprises the Alleghanian Faunal Area 

 and the bits of the Canadian Zone. The Cherokee also extended into 

 the Carolinian Faunal Area of the Upper Austral Zone, where lived 

 also most of the Siouan tribes of Virginia and the Carolinas, ex- 

 cepting some that extended from the fall line to the coast. The 

 Shawnee also were generally to be found in this area as well as the 



