20 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



Yuchi in early days and some Muskhogean tribes along the River 

 Tennessee. The Tropical Zone of southern Florida was the home of 

 the important Calusa tribe and a number of small, probably related, 

 peoples on the east coast. All of the other tribes of this cultural 

 province made their homes in the Austroriparian Faunal Area of 

 the Lower Austral Zone. Only some of the wilder hunting peoples 

 were found in the edges of the Upper and Lower Sonoran Faunal 

 Areas, and these fall outside of the section under discussion. 



The number and location of these various groups were evidently 

 determined by a complex series of causes and cannot be derived 

 immediately out of the environment. However, the adoption of a 

 horticultural complex was without doubt one major reason behind 

 the integration of these peoples into tribes, and the location of suit- 

 able cornland and suitable fisheries were determining factors of con- 

 siderable weight. We have already noted the bearing which the 

 position of the fall line had on the size and location of some Siouan 

 tribes, and on the situation of the Creeks. The Apalachee were on 

 the most important high land in Florida. The value of southern 

 Appalachian quarries to the Cherokee and the significance of the 

 Appalachians as means of defence have already been dwelt upon. 

 The fertility of the old Choctaw, Chickasaw, Natchez, and Caddo 

 territories contains a partial explanation of them, but it is probable 

 that many important tribes formerly living along the Mississippi 

 River had been driven out later by the chronic flooding to which 

 the territory was subjected and, in more recent times, apparently, 

 by wide-spread epidemics. The Natchez Bluff explains in consider- 

 able measure the prominence of the Natchez people, and the bluffs 

 in the neighborhood of Vicksburg, the Tunica people. In the case 

 of the Catawba, perhaps we must suppose that they were sufficiently 

 far from the lowlands to escape the embarrassment of heavy forests 

 to be cut down in the process of preparing fields, and were in prox- 

 imity to Saluda Pass and the mountain quarries, and in a strategic 

 position at trail crossings. 



It is evident, however, that the manner in which the geographical 

 features were utilized depended largely upon nongeographical factors 

 such as race, language, and intertribal contacts. Nearly all of the 

 tribes were homogeneous internally in respect to language and culture, 

 not as much so as regards race. A few governmental organizations 

 had reached a point of development which enabled them to take in 

 tribes of alien speech, but in all such cases the tribes thus incorporated 

 constituted a minority element. In the case of the Creek Confedera- 

 tion, it is true, the adopted elements at one time constituted nearly half 

 of the federated body, but these were themselves diverse, and the 

 dominant people, the Muskogee, always vastly outnumbered any one 



