204 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 118 



fies them with the Tallike or Talliquewi. Such tradition would 

 seem to give color to Haywood's 9 record of Cherokee tradition ob- 

 tained by study and association with living Cherokee in the early 

 part of the nineteenth century. Haywood reported that the Cherokee 

 have a tradition of having once lived north of the Ohio River and 

 of having migrated up the Kanawha and the New Rivers to the 

 headwaters of the Holston. Haywood believed that, according to 

 this tradition, the Cherokee came into Tennessee from the north- 

 east — from Virginia — and had established settlements on New River 

 and on Holston River at Watauga Old Fields before they were 

 forced to move farther south to the Little Tennessee River by the 

 attacks of their northern neighbors. In this connection Haywood 

 states : 



* * * before the year 1690 the Cherokees, who were once settled on the 

 Appomattox River, in the neighborhood of Monticello, left their former abodes 

 and came to the west. The Powhatans are said by their descendants to have 

 been once a part of this nation. The probability is that migration took place 

 about, or soon after the year 1632, when the Virginians suddenly and unex- 

 pectedly fell upon the Indians, killing all they could find, and cutting up and 

 destroying their crops, and causing great numbers to perish by famine. They 

 came to New River and made a temporary settlement, and also on the head 

 of the Holston. 10 



As to their establishment on the Tennessee River, Haywood states : 



* * * the Cherokees were firmly established on the Tennessee River or 

 Hogohega (the Holston) before the year 1650, and had dominion over all the 

 country on the east side of the Alleghany Mountains, which includes the head- 

 waters of the Yadkin, Catawba, Broad River, and the headwaters of the 

 Savannah. 11 



Thomas 12 expresses the opinion that Haywood's date for the pos- 

 sible migration is clearly in error. If the migration did in fact 

 take place, he asserts it must have been much earlier. This opinion 

 is based on the fact that when De Soto came into northern Georgia 

 in 1540 he found the "Chelaques" or Achalaques in their mountain 

 homes in western North Carolina. He here accepts the identifica- 

 tion of the Chelaques with the Cherokee, as have many other his- 

 torians. S wanton, 13 as the result of later studies, does not accept 

 this identification. Of this, he says : 



It has been usual, and natural, to identify the Chelaque or Xalaque of the 

 De Soto " chroniclers with the Cherokee, but if the word Cherokee has the 

 origin I suspect, from Muskogee chilokee (there is no "r" in Muskogee), signi- 

 fying "people of a different speech", it may not have been applied solely to the 



9 Haywood, 1823, pp. 226-234. 



10 Ibid., p. 223. 

 « Ibid., p. 225. 

 ^Thomas, 1889, p. 89. 



13 Swanton, John R., personal communication. 



14 "Gentleman of Elvas", 1851, p. 52. 



