492 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



Sonne of my prisoner, who also him selfe had bene prisoner with the Mangoaks, 

 and set downe all the particularities to me before mentioned : but hee had not 

 beene at Chawnis Temoatan himselfe : for hee said it was twentie dayes journey 

 overland from the Mangoaks, to the said Mineral Countrey, and that they passed 

 through certaine other territories betweene them and the Mangoaks, before they 

 came to the said Countrey. (Burrage, 190G, p. 255.) 



This account has occasioned considerable discussion. Chaunis 

 Temoatan means "salt-making village," and it has been suggested that 

 the description of ore extraction was intended by Lane's informant as 

 an account of salt boiling. However, it is quite as likely to represent a 

 current Indian belief as to the manner in which copper was obtained 

 since the great copper region was remote from Carolina and the Caro- 

 lina Indians were probably as ignorant of the manner of its occur- 

 rence and the method of obtaining it as were the whites. Since copper 

 was not smelted in North America, it is possible that the reference to 

 fire may have been supplied by the imagination of Lane, or that it may 

 have been part of an independent mention of salt boiling. But the 

 description is so grotesque and involved that not much can be made 

 out of it. 



As the Nottoway were an Iroquoian tribe, unrelated to most of the 

 remaining Indians of Virginia, it is possible that they kept this trade 

 route open from the time when they themselves descended from the 

 northwest. The salt province probably refers to the region of the salt 

 licks in northeastern Kentucky, but that in no way interferes with 

 the possible function of its inhabitants as intermediaries in transport- 

 ing copper to the Atlantic coast. It will be remembered that the De 

 Soto chroniclers clearly indicate that copper was a trade article, and 

 that the only reference to a copper mine is in that passage dealing with 

 the province of Chisca north of Tennessee River toward which two 

 messengers were sent. The Chisca are identifiable as Yuchi, and, 

 since there is no native copper in the part of Tennessee indicated, I 

 interpret the episode as signifying that these Yuchi were interme- 

 diaries in the copper trade just as were those of Chaunis Temoatan. 

 Indeed, the two provinces may have been identical, though that is 

 extremely doubtful. The Lake Superior origin of this copper is con- 

 firmed by the fact reported by Hariot (1893, p. 18) that it was found to 

 contain silver. 



Virginia chroniclers confirm Hariot and Lane as regards the gen- 

 eral direction from which most copper entered the country, but there 

 was a small source nearer at hand. This was at a place called Ritanoe 

 where the Werowance Eyanoco was said to have certain mines of cop- 

 per, and where Strachey (1849, p. 25), who records the fact, believed 

 seven of the English of the Roanoke colony had been held in confine- 

 ment for the purpose of pounding out this metal. Mr. Bushnell (1907, 

 p. 34) has identified this with a spot near Virgilina, Va., where small 



