SWANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 657 



tribes as clan animals ; why the fox, turkey, potato, and raven should 

 not have been popular with Iroquoians and Siouans; and why the 

 turtle should not have had as great a vogue in the South and among 

 Siouans as among the Iroquoian and Algonquian peoples, although in 

 this latter case the position of the turtle in mythology may account for 

 it. As much can hardly be said, however, for the failure of the panther, 

 wildcat, raccoon, skunk, wind, and otter to take hold upon the imagina- 

 tions of the northern and western Indians as they did those of the 

 southern Indians. As in so many other cases involving human in- 

 stitutions, obvious, or at least plausible, explanations will carry us 

 part of the way and yet leave a substantial residuum. 



In table 4, showing the distribution of clans in the area 

 under discussion, the Muskogee or Creeks proper and the Hitchiti have 

 not been kept apart because the two peoples were living in intimate 

 contact in the historic period. The only differentiation seems to 

 have been in the greater development of the Snake, Otter, Mole, Toad, 

 and Tcikote clans among the latter. The Alabama data are drawn 

 from the Alabama living in Texas, who seem to have preserved more 

 of the distinctive traits of the tribe. Perhaps the most important 

 Alabama peculiarities consisted in the development of Daddy-long- 

 legs and Salt clans. The names of the clans attributed to the Natchez 

 were learned from modern informants and may have been borrowed 

 entirely from the Creeks and Cherokee. It is again doubtful how 

 many clans attributed to the Yuchi antedate Creek contact. For the 

 Timucua we are entirely dependent upon information from the mis- 

 sionary Pareja, which may be incomplete. When we are able to 

 translate all of the names he gives us, a few more totem animals may 

 be discovered. The Chickasaw clans were probably borrowed in the 

 main from the Creeks. Mooney is our principal authority for the 

 Cherokee and Caddo, Hewitt for the Tuscarora, and J. O. Dorsey for 

 the Quapaw and Tutelo, while the only notes we have on Chitimacha 

 are from Duralde or were obtained by me from Benjamin Paul, the 

 late Chitimacha chief (Swanton, 1928, pp. 114-120; 1911, p. 349). 



464735 — i6 43 



