Tribes of the Southern Woodlands : Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, Seminole 0809495503, 9780809495504

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TRIBES Of THE

SOUTHERN WOODLANDS

BR

£ o 8 7

25871 970.004 EDITORS OF TIME-LIFE BOOKS E23a The American Indians: Tribes of the southern woodlands.

SEP

U

1994

Archbishop Mitty High School

Media Centei^f

RULES 1.

use

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ARCHBISHOP MITTY LIBRARY

ed for )l,

followi 3.

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and

ass the

should

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for

two

6 4 injury to books beyond reasonable wear and all losses shall be paid for. No books may be taken from the library 5.

without being charged.

TRIBES OF THE

SOUTHERN WOODLANDS

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This volume ry

and

is

one of a

series that chronicles the histo-

culture of the Native

Americans Other books

in

the series include:

FIRST AMERICANS THt SPIRIT WORLD Till

H TAN CHALLENGE PEOPLE OF THE DESERT THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR THE BUFFALO HUNTERS

REALM OF THE IROQUOIS THE MIGHTY CHIEFTAINS KEEPERS OF THE TOTEM CYCLES OF LIFE WAR FOR THE PLAINS

The Cover Wearing a coyote-skin headdress and dazan Oklahoma Cherokee celebrates his

zling face paint,

cultural heritage during a

modern

powwow commem-

orating the 1838 forced migration known as the Trail of Tears More than 10,000 men, women, and children ol five tribes-Cherokee, Creek. Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole-dled during the ordeal of their remi the Southeast to the government designated n in the Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma

THE AMERICAN INDIANS

TRIBES OF THE

SOUTHERN WOODLANDS by

THE EDITORS of

TIME-LIFE

BOOKS

Archbishop Mitty High School Library

5000 Mitty Way San Jose, CA 95129

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

Time-Life Books

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THE AMERICAN INDIANS

a division of TIME LIFE INC

SERIES EDITOR: Henry Woodhead Edwin

PRESIDENT and CEO: John M. Fahey Jr

L Papanek

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: John

Administrative Editor: Jane

Editorial Staff for Tribes of the Southern Woodlands Senior Art Director: Ray Ripper

BOOKS

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MANAGING EDITOR:

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Production Celia Beattie Library: Louise

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Computer Composition. Deborah G. Tait (Manager), Monika D. Thayer, Janet Barnes

States Indian policy. Indians, Dr. litical

and

A

in

specialist in southeastern

Green focuses his research on the po-

social history of the Creeks.

He

is

the

author The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis, The Creeks, and several other books. Dr. Green has been a fellow of the Newberry Library's D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian.

Frederick

E.

Hoxie

is

director of the D'Arcy

Mc-

Nickle Center for the History of the American Indi-

an

Syring, Lillian Daniels

Professor of History at the Uni-

the history of Native

ry,

Kagan

Director of Production Services-. Robert

is

Kentucky where he teaches courses Americans and of United

versity of H. Bailey,

Marfe Ferguson Delano, Thomas Lewis, Susan PerDavid S. Thomson (text); Martha Lee BeckingMurphy Terrell (research); Barbara L. Klein (index).

New Product Development:

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Special Contributors:

General Consultants Raymond D. Fogelson is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, whose research and teaching interests include American Indian ethnohistory and ethnology, religion, and psychological anthropology. He has written many articles focusing on the southeastern Indians, the history of anthropology, and conception of self and personhood in different societies. Dr. Fogelson is also the editor of several books, including The Anthropology of Power. He is a fellow of the American Anthropological Association and past president of the American Society for Ethnohistory.

at the

Newberry Library

the author of A

Chicago. Dr. Hoxie is Final Promise: The Campaign to Asin

and other works. He has served as a history consultant to the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux triues, Little Big Horn College archives, and the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs. He is a trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.

similate the Indians 1880-1920

S 1994 Time Life Inc All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval devices or sysof this book

tems, without prior written permission from the publisher, except that brief passages

ed

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Printed in

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Published simultaneously

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trademark of Time Warner

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US

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Tribes of the southern woodlands/by the editors of Time-Life Books

p cm -(The American Indians) Includes bibliographical references and index

ISBN 0-8094-9550-3 ISBN 0-8094-9551-1 I

(lib.

bdg

Indians of North America-Southern States-

History 2 Indians of North America-Southern

States-Social i

Time

Life

life and customs. Books li Series

E78S65T75 1994 975' 00497 -dc20

in

Cherokee, North Carolina Dr. King has written more than four dozen publications on American Indian subjects and has taught courses in Cherokee studies at the University of Tennessee and Northeastern State University.

Canada

School and library distribution by Time-Life Education, PO Box 85026, Richmond, Virginia

Is

Duane King is the assistant director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. He has also served as the executive director of the Cherokee National Historical Society in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian

reviews

First printing

Special Consultant

93-40640 CIP

25871

CONTENTS AN IMPERILED WAY OF

LIFE

16

THE RAVAGES OF WARFARE

NATIONS ON THE MOVE 112

ESSAYS

MONUMENTS TO THE QODS 6

THE SEMINOLE MEDICINE MAN 56

THE TRAIL WHERE WE CRIED 100

BOUNTY FROM MOTHER CORN 160 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 170 BIBLIOGRAPHY 170 PICTURE CREDITS 172

INDEX 173

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TRIBES OF THE SOUTHERN WOODLANDS 17

1 AN IMPERILED WAY OF

For two

months during

the win-

young Englishman

ter of 1701, a

named John Lawson walked

and canoed more than 500 miles through the

interior of the

London and Lawson had nevertheless

Carolina Territory. Although newly arrived from

inexperienced in wilderness

been appointed

LIFE Stalking Turkey, or Cunrte Shote, grasps a scalping knife in a portrait painted while he was in London on a peaceful delegation in 1 762. Like the other

southern woodlands tribes, the Cherokee were eventually devastated by the intrusion of the Euro-

peans with

a survey of the area by the True and Absolute

Lords Proprietors, the British

who

officials

administered the

territory.

At

the time, only a handful of white men, mostly traders and Spanish explorers,

Cherokee chief

make

to

travel,

had journeyed into the uncharted hinterland, and

who lived

the native peoples

was known of

little

there.

Accompanied by Indian guides and a small party of Englishmen, Lawson set out from what he called the "thriving colony" of Charles Towne

(now Charleston, South Santee

River.

From

Carolina)

there,

and trekked north

to the

mouth of the

he moved inland, tracing a horseshoe-shaped

route through the vast pine barrens and cane and cypress

swamps

of the

coastal plain into the Piedmont country, and then back again toward the

Sound

English settlements along Pamlico

Despite the physical difficulties of the

trip,

in

present-day North Carolina.

Lawson remained an

enthusi-

their

deadly diseases.

astic observer,

making extensive notes

in his journal.

some new object," he wrote halfway through

"Every step presents

the journey, "which

still

adds

invitation to the traveler in these parts."

Lawson was wildlife

fascinated by the richness and diversity of the plants

and

he encountered, from the "endless numbers of panthers, wolves,

and other beasts of prey," whose nighttime howling pierced the dark be-

yond

his campsite, to the wild turkeys "several

perched

in "lofty

oaks" so

wrote about ducks

tall

that a

musket

"of a strange kind,

and of passenger pigeons

in flocks

ball

hundred

in

a gang" that

could not reach them. He

having a red

circle

about

their eyes"

so dense that they sometimes blocked

when flying by and "split off the limbs of stout oaks and other when roosting. He found the land to be fertile beyond imagination

the sun trees"

and teeming with Yet despite

all

possibilities.

the

wonders Lawson discovered among the

fauna, his journal, which

was

later

published under the

title

flora

and

A New Voyage

TRIBES OF THE SOUTHERN WOODLANDS 18

to Carolina, is

most remarkable

encountered.

On page

for its description of the native

after page,

peoples he

he painted vivid word portraits of

their

appearance and customs, which seemed as strange and exotic to him as

European fashions and manners must have appeared

his

though

their tribes or nations

you may discern as great an

served, 'yet

dispositions as ferent from distance."

you can

in their

each other, though

alteration in their features

speech, which generally proves quite

their nations

be not above

He wrote of how some of the Indians grew

and how they

fixed their hair in

tied

it

back

in

order to ward off the cold and insects,

fat in

which the men decorated

which they get

dif-

or 20 miles in

He recounted how they

tail."

and described the manner

made from

and

their fingernails long

greased their bodies with bear

paints

1

bobs on top of the head or

one long batch that resembled a "horse's

in

to them. "Al-

border upon one another," Lawson ob-

their faces with

roots, including a particularly valuable "scarlet root

in the hilly country" (probably Sanguinaria canadensis, or

bloodroot). Prior to going off to war,

Lawson

noted, the warriors

first

painted their faces red, and then added a black circle around one eye and a white circle around the other. As a final flourish, they stuck eagle and

other bird feathers in their

hair.

Whether he came upon them in their large,

tive

in their

sometimes palisaded

hunting camps

villages,

in the

Lawson found

woods

or

Carolina's na-

peoples to be welcoming and generous. At every settlement, he re-

counted, he and his companions received offerings of food and shelter (and sometimes female bed partners) for the night.

One group

of Waxhaw

Indians from the Wateree River valley dispatched a messenger to greet

Lawson and

to

preparing for a for

us to

sit

or

encourage him festival.

"They

to visit their village,

laid furs

where the people were

and deer skins upon cane benches

upon, bringing stewed peaches and green corn, which

lie

a pretty sort of food, and a great increaser of the blood,"

Lawson noted

is

in

his journal. Later that night, the

Waxhaw

large "state house" as "dark as a

dungeon, and as hot as one of the Dutch

invited

him

to a feast, held in a

stoves

in Holland." While eating from platters of grain, fruit, and bear Lawson watched with fascination as male and female dancers, masked and dressed in feathered costumes, turned "their bodies, arms,

steak,

and legs

into

such

frightful

postures that you would have guessed they

had been quite raving mad."

Because of

his

European prejudices and unfamiliarity with Indian

ways, Lawson often misinterpreted or distorted Nevertheless, his

is

one of the few

much

of what he saw.

early written accounts of the indige-

AN IMPERILED WAY OF LIFE L9

nous peoples who once inhabited the Carolina Territory and other regions of the American South. Lawson's journal thus serves as a valuable record of remarkable cultures, most of which have long since vanished. eases, spreading colonial settlements, slave raids,

New dis-

and a growing depend-

ence on white men's goods would force the southeastern Indians into a

new and

precarious existence. Entire nations would be overwhelmed or

compelled to leave

new

forming

Many of the tually,

old

homes and merge

their ancestral

mixed

societies with

traditions

ways and customs would

with other groups,

and blended languages.

die out

and be

forgotten. Even-

by the mid- 1800s, most of the native peoples would be removed

from the Southeast, driven out by land-hungry whites supported by both the federal

and

state governments. After undertaking a series of forced

emigrations collectively

known

to history as the Trail of Tears, the Indians

would be relocated west of the Mississippi tempt to rebuild

E

River,

where they would

at-

their shattered lives.

arly clues of the

coming catastrophe can be found

1701 journal. Every village he visited,

in

Lawson's

no matter how remote, had

already been altered by European contact-from the mixed-blood

children playing in the fields to the iron hoes, brass kettles, bottles of rum,

and other European goods scattered throughout the households. Even the peaches served by his

Waxhaw

hosts were introduced by the Spaniards.

most devastating— impact came from

Yet the biggest— and certainly the particles so tiny

minute they were

naked

invisible to the

eye.

These were the

microbes that the white traders and explorers unwittingly brought

into the region

Lawson noted

and

for

which,

tragically, the

Indians lacked immunity.

the disastrous effect that the Old World diseases had al-

ready had on the Indians. "There

is

not the sixth savage living within 200

miles of all our settlements, as there were 50 years ago," he wrote, adding that a recent smallpox epidemic

had "destroyed whole towns, without

leaving one Indian alive." Still,

and

all

in 1701, the Indians

remained the masters of the Carolina

interior

but a fraction of the lands composing today's American South.

Their most ancient forebears had

first

entered the region— which, in

broadest terms, stretches from the Mississippi River eastward to the Atlantic

Ocean and from

the Gulf of Mexico northward to the Ohio River— at

the end of the Ice Age, 10,000 years earlier. ch

awn by

the bountiful plant

and animal

life.

They came from the west,

The dense

forests,

both de-

TRIBES OF THE SOUTHERN WOODLANDS 20

This stone pipe was carved in the shape

of a wildcat by an artisan of the Hopewell culture that flourished

about AD 300. A channel drilled through the base served as the pipestem; a bowl in the animal's head held tobacco.

ciduous and pine, and the lush highlands offered a wide variety of game, elk, bear, wolf, squirrel,

including deer,

and even

alligator in the coastal

raccoon, opossum,

otter, turkey,

swamplands. The region also provided an

and

inexhaustible storehouse of seeds, berries, nuts, leaves,

Both

roots.

freshwater and saltwater fish were also plentiful, including a species of giant catfish that weighed

Although the

more than 100 pounds. southeastern peoples sustained themselves as

first

hunters and gatherers, sometime early

gan

and other

to cultivate corn

skilled at gardening, they settled into

rich culture, characterized

monuments

to their

in the first

millennium

crops. Gradually, as they

permanent

villages

and developed a

by the great earthen mounds they erected as

gods and as tombs

for their distinguished

of these early

mound

which had

beginnings near the Ohio River and takes

its

sites in Ohio.

The

builders

Florida. Its

far

its

culture,

name from

southward into present-day Louisiana, peoples became great traders, bartering

jewelry, pottery, animal pelts, tools,

ing networks that stretched

dead. Most

were part of the Adena-Hopewell

culture spread

Alabama, Georgia, and

AD they be-

became more

and other goods along extensive

trad-

up and down eastern North America and as

west as the Rocky Mountains.

About

AD 400, the

eral centuries,

named

it

after the river

ed. This

complex

Hopewell culture

fell

into decay.

was supplanted by another along which

civilization

until shortly before the

many of its

Over the next sev-

culture, the Mississippian, earliest villages

were

locat-

dominated the Southeast from about AD 700

Europeans began arriving

in the 16th century.

At

Two rattlesnakes, ornately intertwined, writhe across the sides and bottom of the ce-

ters

the

peak of

its

strength, about the year 1200,

it

was

the

most advanced

culture in North America. Like their Hopewell predecessors, the Mississip-

pians

became

highly skilled at growing food, although

They developed an improved soil

and a

strain of corn,

relatively cool climate,

deed, agriculture

which could survive

and also learned

became so importanl

on a grander

scale.

in

wet

to cultivate beans. In-

to the Mississippians that

it

be-

ramic vessel at made by potof the late Mis-

right,

sissippian culture

about AD 1500.

In

the view at top, the

head of one snake appears just below the bottle's mouth, while the other is

engraved on its base (bottom view).

A N

MPER1LED WAY OF LIFE 21

came

closely associated with the

tribes called

sun-the guarantor of good

themselves "children of the sun" and believed

tent priest-chiefs

crops.

their

Many

omnipo-

were descendants of the great sun god.

Although most Mississippians lived

in

small villages or hamlets,

many

others inhabited large towns with thousands of residents. Most of these

huge settlements boasted

at least

one major flat-topped mound on which

stood a temple that contained a sacred flame. Only priests and those

charged with guarding the flame could enter the temples. The mounds also served as ceremonial

and trading

sites,

and

at

times they were used as burial grounds, although the Mississippians usually built other, smaller this

mounds

for

purpose. Through the later 13th and into the 14th

centuries, however, for reasons that remain poorly un-

derstood, the great centers of Mississippian culture be-

gan

to languish

and

die out.

Even though the Europeans arrived on the continent too

late to

witness Mississippian culture at

peak, they did find remnants of the great temple

its

mound

builders scattered throughout the Southeast. In the

spring of 1540, the Spanish conquistador Hernando de

Soto came across the Cofitachequi

in

what

is

now

South Carolina during his bloody three-year march through the American South.

A century and a half later,

French explorers founding the colony of Louisiana en-

countered the Natchez living along Saint Catherine

Creek near the present-day town

in Mississippi that

bears their name. Like their Mississippian ancestors, the Natchez had a highly centralized political system

and a

rich

ceremonial

The French were tion the Indians

life.

particularly struck

showed

their chief,

by the adora-

whom

they consid-

ered to be a direct descendant of their solar set out at

two

in the

which the Great Chiefs cabin

young

is

situated,"

"We

hill

on

noted a

Du Ru, who visited a "We met him halfway there,

Jesuit priest, Father Paul

Natchez

village in 1700.

escorted by the principal personages of the chiefs

deity.

afternoon to climb the

manner impresses me; he has

tribe.

The

the air of an an-

cient emperor, a long face, sharp eyes,

an imperious

TRIBES OF THE SOUTHERN WOODLANDS 22

aquiline nose, a chestnut complexion,

and manners somewhat Spanish.

The respect with which the other savages approach and serve him is astonishing. If he speaks to one of them, that person thanks him before answering. They never pass in front of him it

is

if it

can be avoided;

True to their Mississippian heritage, the Natchez had ple

if

they must,

with elaborate precautions."

on the mound near the chiefs house

cred objects, including the heads and

built a large

tem-

in

which they kept an array of sa-

tails

of rattlesnakes, blocks of stone

human beings, stuffed owls, fragments of crystal, and the bones of dead rulers. One sealed wooden box was said to contain the remains of the original sun god, who the Natchez believed had turned himself into stone when he finished his work on earth. and clay chiseled

to depict

The other powerful Mississippian-style chiefdoms had long since lapsed,

weakened by

col-

and then decimated by the white

internal tensions

man's diseases. Within 200 years of first contact with the Europeans, perhaps more than 50 percent of the southeastern Indian population died from smallpox, measles, bubonic plague, and other diseases. Villages vanished and nations crumbled. In

many

mourn

As

the living to

their culture.

causing

for the

dead.

were barely enough of

cases, there

the Indians perished, so did

much

of

Disease robbed them of successive generations of elders,

much

of their collected knowledge to vanish overnight. "They

have forgot most of their traditions since the establishment of this colony," a Carolina colonist wrote of the Etiwah Indians in 1710, nine years after

Lawson's landmark survey. "They keep of the reasons: Their old

As

the various tribes

difficult for

who

them

men

their festivals

and can

tell

but

little

are dead."

began

to maintain

to disintegrate,

it

became more and more

an independent existence. Those peoples

survived joined forces with other groups in

new

settlements, fre-

quently located far from their traditional homelands. Although the survivors attempted to re-create their old in retaining

tions

way of life,

they usually succeeded

only fragments of past customs and practices. Similar emigra-

had occurred among the

earlier Mississippian societies, of course,

but never on such a massive scale.

The experience of the now befell

many of the

extinct Saponi Indians

smaller southeastern tribes.

were an independent people

living

to so

late

was

typical of what

as 1670, the Saponi

on the Staunton River

ing the next 50 years, however, they

numbers dwindled

As

in Virginia.

Dur-

were devastated by disease, and

their

few that they were no longer able to defend

themselves against aggression by neighboring tribes

who were

their nat-

An IMPERILED WAY OF LIFE

Framed by thick logs,

a passage

leads into a reconstructed earthen ceremonial center (above) that was originally built by

Indians of the mound builder culture some 1,000 years ago near Macon, Georgia. The interior of such a

structure (right)

would have been warmed and lighted in ancient times

by

afire in the pit at

foreground.

TRIBES OF THE SOUTHERN WOODLANDS

ural enemies.

The Saponi were forced

of a safe haven, joining forces

pressed tribes before

finally

first

to

move

again and again in search

with a succession of similarly hard-

migrating to Carolina and becoming part of

From

the mist-

shrouded valleys of the Appalachians to the vast swamps of Florida, the South-

the

Catawba

nation. In 1732,

majority of them bers of the

still

still

feeling culturally dislocated,

A decade

nis returned to Virginia.

moving north

to

later,

many Sapo-

they scattered yet again, with the

present-day

New York to become mem-

powerful Iroquois League.

At one time, scores of different tribes representing at least five lan-

guage groups and countless dialects inhabited the American Southeast, rendering

it

more

linguistically diverse

dle of the 18th century, or, like

the Saponi,

most of the

merged with

than Europe today. Yet by the mid-

tribes

had

either died out completely

larger nations. Four of these larger na-

tions-the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creek— came to dominate the political

and

cultural

would be joined by a

Seminole. Largely Creek Florida

and began

to

landscape of the area. Later

fifth

in the century,

they

group that would eventually be known as the in origin,

assume

the Seminole peoples emigrated to

a distinct identity as they adapted to a tropi-

was once home perhaps 100 but few survived European diseast to

tribes,

ease and colonization. Shown here are some of the peoples that figure

prominently in this tragedy—from those

who are now no more than names

to

the nations that en-

dure

to this day.

AN IMPERILED WAY OF LIFE 23

A sacred staff of the Chickasaw

cal

environment. Although

many

other sizable Indian nations existed

in

tribe

bears delicate carvings of ears of com.

According to legend, a similar staff was carried during the tribe's migration from the west. Imbued with spirit power, it pointed the

way to a new home for the tribe in what is today northern

the region-the

Catawba

in

South Carolina, the Yuchi

in Georgia,

and the

Tunica-Biloxi in Mississippi, for example-their influence never ap-

proached that of the

five principal nations.

The Choctaw inhabited the

forested

rolling,

hills

of present-day

southern Mississippi, western Alabama, and eastern Louisiana. According to

one of their

oral traditions shared with the Chickasaw, their ances-

tors crossed the Mississippi River

west.

The Choctaw were

led

on

from some long-forgotten land

this journey, as

legend has

it,

in the

by a white

Mississippi.

dog aided by the mysterious leanings of a sacred

staff.

Each evening,

Chacta, the Choctaw culture hero, stuck the staff into the ground, and

each morning found

tilting to

it

the east.

the direction of the rising sun until the

dog had died and the

decided to

settle

staff

and where,

waiya, or "leaning mound."

It

The white dog then

was standing

upright.

in celebration, the

would be the

site

gious gatherings for centuries to come, until a the early 1800s.

The mound can

led

them

one morning Chacta discovered

still

be seen

in

that

That was where he

Choctaw

built the

nanih

of their political and

reli-

council meeting in

final

in a field

near the town of

Philadelphia in east-central Mississippi.

To the north of the Choctaw,

in

what are now the Tombigbee high-

lands of northern Mississippi, lay the heartland of the Chickasaw, a small

but powerful tribe renowned for the ferocity of

chase they for

its

warriors. "In a long

away, through the rough woods, by the bare track,

will stretch

two or three hundred

miles, in pursuit of a lying

enemy, with the con-

tinued speed, and eagerness, of a staunch pack of blood hounds,

shed blood," wrote James Adair, a

British trader

Chickasaw during the 18th century. The close ilarities

who

cultural

lived

till

they

among

the

and language sim-

between the Chickasaw and the Choctaw indicate

that the

two

groups were probably once a single people. Several Chickasaw legends support this theory,

for

they

tell

of how two brothers, Chacta and Chicsa,

jointly led their tribe to the eastern forests

ple should split into

arrangement that

in

and then decided that the peo-

two groups occupying adjoining homelands, an

time spawned a bitter

With a population of only about 5,000

approached the size of the Choctaw,

rivalry.

in 1700, the

who

during the

Chickasaw never

same time num-

bered about 21,000. Yet despite their small numbers, the Chickasaw

laid

claim to a broad swath of territory that extended north across western

Tennessee and Kentucky

commanded

to the

Ohio River and east

into

Alabama. They

a long stretch of the Mississippi River, the Father of Waters,

TRIBES OF THE SOUTHERN WOODLANDS 26

controlling the river traffic

West and the

the

and much of the flow of trade goods between

tribes of the Southeast.

Well to the east of the Chickasaw, in the

low mountains and

valleys of the southern Appalachians, lived the Cherokee, a

most

Choctaw word

derived from either the

likely

"cave people," or the

Muskogean word

tciloki,

rich river

name

chiluk-ki,

that

meaning

meaning "people of a

differ-

ent speech." The Cherokee, however, called themselves aniyunwiya, or the "principal people,"

and believed that

homeland stood

their

at the center of

the physical world. Unlike the other major nations of the Southeast, all

who

spoke dialects of Muskogean, the Cherokee spoke Iroquoian, the lan-

guage of

their northeastern kin. Archaeological

evidence suggests that

they

settled in the Great

Smoky Mountains

of present-day western

first

North Carolina, and then spread as

Carolina, Alabama, Still

as the western

far

and south

Ridge, into eastern Tennessee,

tip

hill

of Virginia's Blue

country of South

and Georgia.

farther south, across the

remainder of Alabama and Georgia,

known

dwelt dozens of smaller tribes that were 1

into the

to the British in the late

7th century as Creeks. While these tribes were generally autonomous,

they were also part of a larger, multitribal alliance that predated the Europeans. Generally speaking, lages,

it

consisted of two large regional groups of vil-

which the Carolina traders referred

The upper towns were located

ma

River valleys

in the

to as

and the lower towns

in the

Chattahoochee and

These groupings were obvious to

er systems.

Upper and Lower Creeks.

Tallapoosa, Coosa, and upper Alaba-

late-

Flint Riv-

17th-century French

traders as well, who called the Upper Creeks Tallapoosas, and Lower Creeks Cowetas, after two of the principal towns. The Creeks had no single tongue. Among the Indians living along one

and Spanish the

six-mile stretch of the

en

distinct

Alabama

River, for

example, James Adair noted sev-

languages being spoken. So different were these languages

that another British trader,

the Creek languages of

Timothy Barnard, who had learned

Muskogee and

Hitchiti fluently,

to

speak

claimed he could

never gain more than a superficial understanding of Yuchi, even after

marrying a Yuchi woman. It

was once thought

southeastern Indians

Many

that the British

chose the word "Creek" because

built their villages

now

above the banks of

rivers

and

name was

first

used to describe a specific group of Muskogee speakers, the Ochesee,

who

streams.

at the

scholars

believe,

time of the founding of Charles

however, that the

Towne

in

1670 lived

in

present-day

Georgia along a stretch of the upper Ocmulgee River that the traders

AN IMPERILED WAY OF LIFE

\

l&aik

,-

II^^V'^iB •

^

.

v .

Si^***^

•

An ancient earthen mound in Mississippi called "nanih

r«(,S'',-

r,

'

•

•

M$Mtik&.-~..

>:

.

called

•'-.

-

,\

Ochesee Creek. The traders who stopped

at the villages to barter for

deerskins referred to the Indians there as Ochesee Creeks— or, eventually,

waiya," sacred to the Choctaw, rises

just Creeks.

beyond a cornfield in a 1914 photograph. According to one Choctaw origi-

forced to

The name stuck and followed the Ochesee when they were

move

farther

west with several other

Chattahoochee River some 50 years

Soon

the British

were

calling

all

tribes to the

banks of the

later.

of the Indians living along the Chatta-

nation legend, the initial

members of

the tribe ascended

from a watery underworld to be

from

the

bom

its

rivers Creeks. Gradually the Indians

themselves came to accept the name,

if only

sunny flanks.

to

make

it

easier to deal with

the whites. In the early 18th century, leaders of the various Creek tribes

mound,

drying themselves

on

hoochee and the other neighboring

formed a national council

to talk

unified front against the whites.

about

When

common

the British

council's influence over the multiplicity of

concerns and present a

came

more

to

understand the

or less

autonomous

towns, they labeled the Creek domain a confederacy. Because of its large population, stalwart warriors, and

cy

became

the

skillful

diplomats, the Creek Confedera-

most formidable Indian group

in the

Southeast.

Despite their differences of ancestry and language, the southeastern Indi-

an

tribes

shared a large number of social and cultural

lived in chiefdoms, or towns, usually in river or stream, close to the fertile

crops.

The

larger

towns extended

plaza, or

woods for Each town was

commons, which functioned as

ccmmunity. The plaza

typically

of them

bottom land where they planted into the

nected by a winding network of trails. tral

traits. All

houses erected on the banks of a their

several miles, conbuilt

around a cen-

the ceremonial center for the

had three components: a

tcokofa, or circu-

TRIBES OF THE SOUTHERN W O

O D

L

A N D S

Shown here and on

lar

town house; a

house; and a ball

flat,

summer

council

cleared

field for

the following pages are portraits of Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Seminoles who once dominated the

games and ceremonies. The

tightly

southern woodlands

constructed tcokofa

Florida and the Carolinas to the banks of the Missis-

from

served as the wintertime meeting

town council and

place for the

also

sippi River.

(such as the one John

Lawson

tended with the Waxhaw).

tors with

no

local kin

A

and as a

who had no

typical tcokofa

in the 19th

at-

ly

made

and ear-

20th centuries.

also

It

functioned as a guesthouse for

bers of the tribe

The pho-

tographs were

as the site of certain celebrations

visi-

shelter for elderly

mem-

relatives to care for them.

measured about 25

feet in diameter,

domed ceiling approximately 25 feet above the ground. One particularly large Cherokee rotunda, however, was said to accommo-

with the highest point of the

SEMINOLE MOTHER AND DAUGHTER, ABOUT 1919

date 500 people. The inside walls were lined with benches, about seven feet

wide and seven

the larger

feet long,

which were covered by cane mats. Some of

town houses might have two or even three

tiers

of benches. As

had only two sources of ventilation-a small smoke hole

the buildings

the roof for the

fire

in

and the low entryway— they were exceedingly dark and

musty, but retained heat extremely well.

The summer council house was not a

single building, but a

number of

separate, rectangular shedlike structures, each about 30 feet in length,

with open fronts, wattle-and-daub walls, and a canopy of leaves and

brush

woven

or thatched together.

The sheds faced each other

square, which covered about half an acre,

in

an open

and were frequently aligned

in

the four cardinal directions. In the middle of the square burned the sacred Like the

fire.

town house, the walls of the sheds were

or 'beds," as the Creek called them.

Low

lined with benches,

partitions of dried clay divided

each shed into compartments, each one belonging to one or more clans,

who

often decorated their section with clan symbols

objects such as eagle feathers, knives, or front

war

clubs.

The town

and various

swan wings, medicinal elders

ritual

herbs, scalping

were given honored seats

in the

on the beds facing the square.

The

third

component of

the central plaza was the chunky yard, a more square, surrounded on two or more As its name implies, the townspeople used the

clearing about 100 yards or sides by a low earthen wall.

space to play a

ball

game

called chunky.

Although there were variations to

AN IMPERILED WAY OF LIFE

YOUNG CHICKASAW BOY, MID 19TH CENTURY

A CHIEF OF THE CREEKS, 1901

the game,

it

generally involved a player rolling a round stone along the

ground and attempting the stone

women

would

to

throw a

stick at the spot

where he guessed

that

A tall post used for another kind of ball game that men could play often stood in the center of the yard.

stop.

as well as

Shorter posts, sometimes adorned with the scalps and skulls of slain enemies, might be placed in the corners of the yard. They were used for tying

up and torturing war

captives.

The public buildings of the tended to be

more

central plaza

were surrounded by family

laid

out in rectangular blocks. Southeastern households

large,

containing a husband and wife, their children, one or

homes, neatly

sons-in-law, a

number of grandchildren as

well as a few aged de-

pendents, and perhaps a few orphans and adopted war captives.

Most southeastern households were

matrilocal,

grouped

in clan

com-

munities related through the mother's clan. Each household utilized a cluster of buildings-a

summer house, a

winter house, and perhaps one or

two storage sheds, depending on the wealth of the house was round, feet

like the puolic

below the surface of the ground.

It

was

to

keep out the

benches lined the wall lish visitor,

like

so that a

structures

draft,

was

The winter dug several

A

com-

small entryway, L-

the only opening. Raised sleeping

at a level just high

"flea

floor

heavily insulated with a

bination of clay and dried grass or Spanish moss.

shaped

family.

town house, with the

enough,

could not reach them

were so well insulated

in the

in

words of one Eng-

one jump." These

that a few coals

were

all

hive-

that

was

TRIBES OF THE SOUTHERN WOODLANDS

GRANNY SPOT, CREEK WOMAN WITH MONOCLE, 1900

CHEROKEE NAMED CLIMBING BEAR, 888 1

needed

to

keep the occupants

ter night. "Their

warm and

Gravier, a French missionary

who

present-day western Mississippi with canes and plastered with out, with a

snug, even

traveled

in

mud

but the door),

how

it

is

little fire

there

bitterest

win-

from bottom to

is

(the

is

no

the Tunica Indians of

1700. "They are lathed top, within

light

smoke

and with-

except by the door,

of which has no escape

as hot as a vapor bath. At night a lighted torch of dried

canes serves as a candle and keeps

The Indians built resistant posts,

among

November of

good covering of straw. There

and no matter

on the

cabins are round and vaulted," wrote Father Jacques

their

the cabin warm."

all

summer homes on frameworks of notched, rot-

interwoven with saplings and

tied together

branches. Each house consisted of a single rectangular

was shingled with cypress or Some summer homes stood two

with reeds or

room covered by a

gabled roof that

pine bark and weighted

down by

stories high.

logs.

the gables

were frequently

left

open

The ends of

to allow fresh breezes to

blow

through. Others were sealed to keep out annoying insects. In addition to

summer and winter homes, each household commonly built an assemblage of smaller buildings, which were used for storage and cooking, the

as well as a special temporary hut for strual periods. until their In

The

women

women

to live in during their

men-

also gave birth there, remaining in seclusion

babies were about four months old.

semitropical coastal areas, the Indians often built houses

protection against

dampness and snakes.

on

stilts

Called a chickee by the Semi-

AN IMPERILED WAY OF LIFE

&V

CHOCTAW BALLPLAYER WITH RACKET, ABOUT 860

if

A

WALINI, A CHEROKEE

1

1

WOMAN,

noles, this kind of shelter lacked walls leaves,

1887

and had a roof made of palmetto

from which canopies could be lowered

at night as protection

against mosquitoes and heavy dew.

The southeastern system of government was designed to promote communal harmony. Each town had one principal official called a miko, a Muskogean word meaning "civil chief." (The Cherokee referred to the person holding

this office as uku.) In contrast to the

absolute power of the

Mississippian rulers, the authority of an 18th-century

miko was

limited to

receiving visiting dignitaries, overseeing the public granary initiating certain feasts,

and serving as the executive

central political body.

officer of the council, the

town's

He governed by persuasion, not coercion, and was

traditionally associated with peace.

The town council functioned as an open and democratic forum. Here decisions of daily importance regarding food, shelter, and family were

made. Typically towns formed themselves into sisting of just a this

few towns

to those

alliances,

from those con-

embracing an entire nation.

It

was

at

higher level of government that major debates on war, peace, and

trade

were most often conducted.

Like the miko, the

Rather,

its

members

town council possessed no coercive

strove in their decision-making process

consensus while avoiding

direct confrontation.

speak his piece without interruption;

someone

else's

if

Everyone was

a council

member

argument, he often simply remained

silent.


vvers.

TRIBES OF THE

S

O

QUALLA, A CHEROKEE WOMAN

JACK TIGERTAIL, SEMINOLE, 1917

The town's warriors constituted one of the most council members. The Creek model

was

influential blocks of

The Creek

typical.

nized three grades of warriors: war chiefs, big warriors, and

based on

WOODLANDS

U T H E R M

their battlefield deeds.

One

of the war chiefs

tribes recog-

warriors,

little

was always

desig-

nated as the town's tastanagi tako, a Muskogean word for "great warrior." It

was

cil

the duty of the

Men who had

war.

man

holding this

title

to lead the

town

in

times of

not yet proved themselves in combat also sat in coun-

but ranked below the warriors.

A group

called the

second

men made up

another important body of

members. These individuals were associated with the miko and were sponsible for the town's internal

affairs,

and

building houses, maintaining the square ground,

munal gardens. The beloved cial

honors

filled

in their

Two additional

now

officials

com-

valued for their wisdom,

were Iheyatika, or

and the holibonaya, or "war speaker." The

miko's speeches so that the

cultivating the

men, esteemed elders who had won spe-

younger days and were

advisory positions.

preter,"

old

re-

supervising such activities as

civil

"inter-

interpreter delivered the

chief might avoid direct confrontation

with anyone opposing his ideas. The war speaker, the town's most elo-

quent orator, represented the views of the great warrior. Before beginning a council meeting, the

bacco and purged

their

members smoked sacred toritual tea made

bodies of pollution by drinking a

from the dried leaves and twigs of the holly shrub, the Indians themselves called

it

Ilex vomitoria.

"white drink" because

it

Although

symbolized puri-

MPERILED WAY OF LIFE

the beverage

ty,

name

is

known today

the Europeans gave

second

men were

it

its

color.

The

charged with the responsibility of

was made

preparing black drink, which similar to tea.

as "black drink," the

because of

The Indians

first

in a

manner

roasted the dried leaves

and twigs and then boiled them

in

uid turned dark brown. Medicine

men sometimes blew

into

it

until the liq-

with a cane straw for hours in order to evoke

sacred powers. Normally served the caffeine-rich

when

water

conch

brew was considered ready

was no longer

it

in large

its

shells,

to drink

scalding. Black drink acted as

both a stimulant and a diuretic, and sometimes, for

reasons that are not well understood, as an emetic. Council meetings were not the only occasion for conCREEK MAN, ABOUT 1880

suming black

drink,

however. The Indians drank

it

in-

formally and before every important undertaking, often in great quantities.

When consumed

ceremonially,

was

it

deliberately

vomited up as part of a purification process.

The many towns of the Creek Confederacy belonged

to

one of two

marked by the color red or white. The Creeks referred to members of their own fire as anhissi, or "my friend," and to members of the

sides, or "fires,"

opposing

fire

as ankipaya, or "my enemy." Each summer, red towns and

white towns competed against each other

in a special ball

game, called

"match play" by the English, involving teams with scores of players, each

one carrying two

ball sticks.

The numbers of people engaged were some-

times so large that games were often held on the open expanses of dry flood plains.

crossbar.

own

Each side had

To score a

goal or cause

it

to strike

Preparations for a ing the contest, entire heckling,

its

own

goal consisting of

two posts and

a

point, a player could either put the ball through his

game

any part of the goalpost.

involved days of ritual observances, and dur-

towns worked themselves

into a frenzy of cheering,

and gambling on the outcome. Although a given town could

challenge any town of the opposite

Much was

fire,

most had a

favorite rival they

young men of both

competed

against.

game was

a chance to gain honor in an arena other than the battlefield.

The prestige of a town hung nual

summer match game

at stake. For

in the

balance as

three times in a

vert to the winner's side. Thus, white

vice versa. Although the

well.

A town

row was

sides, the

that lost the an-

often required to con-

towns might become red towns, and

change of name meant

little in

a practical sense,

34 In the early 18th century,

STRUCTURES some Or ACHLKUIiLL VILLAGE

60

to

80 Cherokee

tribes

Cherokee settlement about 1700. Cherokees lived in two kinds of houses: a summer house, generally used by a single extended family, and an adjacent winter house, which might be shared by typical

vil-

homelands in

Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina. From 200 to 400 or more people

which consisted of individual dwellings scattered around a town center. Based on the descriptions of contemporary travelers as well as lived in a village,

two or more

families. In addition,

many

households kept a small raised building used for storing corn (far right). A circular building with a coneshaped thatched roof, the winter house, or hothouse (left), where villagers lived

modern archaeological excavations, the drawings below and on the follow-

and slept during cold weather, was kept

ing pages portray the structures of a

so

warm

that the Indians stripped

down

35 to breechcloths or skirts it.

Indeed, thanks to

its

upon entering

thick walls-

gale the occupants with exemplary tales

and oft-told legends.

plastered with six or seven inches of

Rectangular in shape with thin

and vegetation-and the fire that burned continuously at its center, the

wattle-and-daub walls and a gabled

dwelling could attain temperatures in

place by saplings, the Cherokee

When the need arose, medicine men would visit the

mer house

clay

excess of 80 degrees.

houses and make steam baths from herbal brews to heal the sick, or to cleanse and purify the occupants in preparation for here, wise

rituals.

And, as depicted

men frequently visited to re-

roof of bark shingles that were held in

(right)

sum-

may have provided

year-round storage

for

a family's food

and possessions, as well as serving as warm-weather sleeping quarters. In addition, the shelter was used for a variety of other activities, including mending and weaving, and cleaning weapons.

H?^;| |Hlf

wrap

36

PLAZA AND PAVILIONS According to Cherokee

tradition, all in-

habitants of a village usually lived within

a drumbeat's call of the square

ground, an open-air plaza located at the center of town. Used during

weather tions,

for

warm

dances, seasonal celebra-

and recreational activities,

the

square covered about half an acre.

It

was customarily surrounded by seven each of the seven clans of the tribe— which were fitted with tiers of benches. During events pavilions-one

for

held at the square, the villagers sat with their respective clans. In addition, the

square ground some-

times served as a sports arena. Espe-

among the Cherokee was an intensely competitive game steeped in ritual. In the drawing at right, two teams face off before the beginning of a contest. Behind them are the rough-cut saplings used as goalposts. cially

popular

stickball,

.

38

THE TOWn COUNCIL HOUSE During the cold months, community gatherings in a Cherokee village

moved

indoors to the town council house,

which stood adjacent to the square

same

ground. Constructed with the

thick clay walls as a winter dwelling, a

council house

from 25 to 50

commonly measured

feet in diameter; the

accommodate between 400 and 500 people. Tiered benches largest could

along the walls surrounded a central

open area where a sacred

fire

burned.

had eight one for the entrance and seven

Traditionally the structure sides:

others to correspond to the seven clans

of the Cherokee

tribe.

The council house served as both temple and public hall, a place for relias well as

gious

rites

and a

variety of other events,

political

meetings such as

ceremonial and social dancing. People sat according to rank, with the seats be-

hind the

fire

reserved for the leaders

and so-called beloved men or women, and the clan members grouped in designated sections.

Warm inside on even the coldest days, the

town council house was also

used to lodge old

travelers,

as well as the

men and women of the village who

had no relatives to take them in and care for them. In the rendering here, the

town

chief is

shown directing prepara-

an event, wearing his tradiand headdress made of feathers dyed yellow. tions for

tional turkey- feather cloak

CHIEF'S

HEADDRESS

39

^m^*****

"".

^Nashville