EASTERN SIOUAN PROBLEM — ^MILLER 179

No.^fJ'f^^

180 BUREAU OF

AlVIERICAN

ETHNOLOGY

[Bull. 164 mentionstheSissipahaus on the waters of

Cape

Fear River,and the Enoes on a branch of the Neuse. With the exception of the Catawbas, we have not the least

knowledge of the languages ofany of those ^tribes. [Itahcsthewriter's.] [Gallatin, 1836, pp. 85-86.]

This was more

fully elaborated

on page

131 of thispaper.

Earlier,

Byrd wrote

that

—

The

Daughter ofthe Totero King went

away

withtheSapponys, butbeingthe lastofher Nation, andfearing she Shou'd not betreatedaccording to her Rank, poison'd herself, like an Old

Roman,

^{with the} Rootofthe Trumpet-Plant. Her Father dy'd2yearsbefore,

who

wasthemostintrepidIndian

we

hadbeen acquainted with.

He

had

made

himself terrible to all other Indians by His Exploits, and had escaped so

many

Dangers that he was esteem'd invulnerable. But at last he dy'd of a Pleurisy, the last

Man

of his Race and Nation, leaving only that

unhappy

Daughterbehind him,

who

wouldnotlong survive him. [Byrd, 1929, pp. 310, 312.]

Byrd wrote

this in his

"History

of the

Dividing Line" and

in his

"Secret

History"

of events that

took

place

around

1733.

Whether

Gallatin

was

referring to

Byrd when he

stated that the

Tutelo were

extinct ^is

not known, but Byrd was

ratherpositive

about

this fact.

Powell

(1892,p.14) states:

"The

lastfull-blood

Tutelo

diedin 1870."

This

follows along

with

Hale,

owing

to

Mooney's

influence

on

Powell.

Whether

the

"most

intrepid

Indian Tutelo king" who

died 2 years before his

daughter poisoned

herself

was

truly the last

man

of his race

and

nation is

not known.

It

would seem

that there

must have been some

reason for this statement,

but we have found Byrd mistaken

before.

Three

sources

—

Lederer, Beverley,

and Needham and Arthur —

^all

agree that the

Occaneechi were

a small

group

or nation.

Beverley

goes

one

better in that

he

is

more

definitive as to time:

"ever

since those parts

were known

to the English,"

which must have been

in the early part of the 17th century.

One language

aspect

which has never been

satisfactorily explained

appeared

in

Lawson's

history ofCarolina.

He

says:

Ionce met with ayoung Indian

Woman

thathadbeen broughtfrom beyond the Mountains,andwassolda Slaveinto Virginia. Shespoke thesamelanguage astheCoramine Indians[?]that dwellnearCapeLookout, allowingforsome few Words, which were different, yet no otherwise than thatthey mightunderstand one another verywell. [Lawson, 1937, pp. 180-181.]

Could they have been

using the "general

language"

of the

Occaneechi

or

were they

of the

same

linguistic stock

and

kin

— ^Algonquian — each

speaking

a dialect of the

same

stock

which would and

^could

account

for the differing of the

few words? The only Indian group

^living

beyond

the

mountains was

the Tutelo, the

Mohetan,

or the

No.^f2T^"

^^^"

EASTERN SIOUAN PROBLEM —

^{^MILLER}

181

Cherokee;

the latter

were members

of the

Iroquoian

hnguistic stock.

One

attribute

never

stressed

about

these Indians is their

means

of recording events.

Lederer

alludes to this

by

saying:

Before I treat of their ancientmanners and customs, it is necessary I should shew by what meanstheknowledgeof

them

hasbeenconveyed fromformer ages to posterity. Three ways they supply their want of letters: first by counters, secondly by emblems of hieroglyphicks, thirdly by tradition delivered in long talesfromfatherto son, which beingchildrenthey are

made

tolearn byrote.

For counters, they use either pebbles, or short scantlings of straw or reeds.

Where

a battle has beenfought, ora colonyseated, theyraise smallpyramid of these stones, consisting of the

number

slain or transplanted. Their reeds and strawsserve

them

inreligiousceremonies:fortheylaythemorderlyinacircle

when

they preparefordevotionorsacrifice;andthatperformed, thecircleremainsstill;

forit issacriledge todisturb or totouchit:the dispositionandsortingofthestraws orreeds, shew whatkind of rites have there been celebrated, as invocation, sac- rifice, burial, etc.

The

faculties oftheminde and bodythey

commonly

expressby emblems.

By

thefigure of astag, theyimply swiftness; bythat ofaserpent, wrath;ofa lion, courage;ofadog, fidelity: by a swan, they signifiethe English, alluding to their complexion,andflightoverthesea.

An

account oftime, and other things, they keep on a string or leather thong tiedin knotsofseveralcolours. I took particular noticeofsmallwheels serving for thispurpose amongst the Oenocks, because I have heard that the Mexicans use the same. Every nation giveshisparticularensigne orarms:

The

Sasquesa- hanaugha Tarapine,orasmalltortoise;theAkenatzy's aserpent;the Nahyssans three arrows,etc. Inthistheylikewiseagreewith theMexicanIndians. [Alvord andBidgood, 1912, p. 142.]

Lawson,

too, in 1714, tells

about

the Indians

making

records of events.

To

prove the times more exactly, he produces the Records of the Country, which are a parcel of Reeds of different Lengths, with several distinct Marks,

known

tononebutthemselves, bj'whichtheyseemtoguessveryexactly at Acci- dents that happened

many

Years ago: nay, two or three Ages or more.

The

Reason I have to believe what they tell

me

on this Account, is, because I have been at the Meeting ofseveral Indian Nations, and they agreed, inrelatingthe sameCircumstancesas toTime, veryexactly; asforExample, they saytherewas sohard a WinterinCarolina 105Yearsago,that the greatSound wasfrozen over, andtheWildGeesecameintothe

Woods

toeatAcorns,andthattheyweresotame

[I suppose through Want],that theykilled abundance in the

Woods

byknocking

them

on theHeadswith Sticks.[Lawson, 1937, 191-192.]

As

forthe Saponi,

Lawson

tells us that

they occupied

a village

and

fort

inaclearfield abouta Mile squareon thebanksoftheSaponaRiver.

One

side oftheRiveris

hemmed

inwithmountainy Ground,the othersideprovingas rich a Soil to the

Eye

ofa knowing Person with us, asany this Western World can afford. . . .

The

Sapona River proves to be the West Branch of Cape Fear, or Clarendon River,whoseinlet, withotheradvantages, makes itappearasnoble a R-iver toplanta Colonyin,asany I havemetwithal.

182 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

^[Bdll.164

Of

the Tutelo,

he

says:

The

Toteros, a neighboring Nation,

came down

from the Western Mountains to the Saponas . . .;

SO the

Saponi were

living apart

from them during

the

time he

first refers to

them. Later

on:

ThesefiveNationsoftheTotero's,Sapona's,Keiauwee's,Aconechos,andSchoc- cories, are lately

come

amongst us, and

may

contain in all, about 750 Men,

Women

and Children.

What was

the

determining

factor that

made

these

groups

decideto pull

up

stakes

and move

into

North Carolina

is

a mute

question

which has never been

satisfactorily settled. It

has been

inferred that

power-

ful enemies, possibly the Iroquois,

had

so

decimated

their

numbers

that

they had

to

band

togetherfor

mutual

protection

and

to

move

into

a

locality

which would be more

easily protected. Since the

Occan-

eechi

occupied a

"natural fortress,"

with

the

mountains on most

sides

and water

all

around

it, it

does not seem

logicalfor

them

to seek

out

a

new

location.

There must have been

other factors involved

which were never mentioned

or

determined.

The team

of

Batts and Fallam was

thefirstto indicate the existence of the

"Occaneechi

Trail."

They

did

not

tell us

where

the

path

ran, neither did

they

teU the extentofthe trail,its

head

or

anything about

it,

but we laiow

that there

was a

trail

known

to traders as the

Occa-

neechi Trail.

William Byrd

indicated

on

his

map where

this trail crossed the

Roanoke River

in the vicinity of the

Great

Falls,

which

are

36

miles

below

the conjfluence of the

Staunton and Dan Rivers and hence never passed

across the

group

of islands

found

in the vicinity of Clarksville,

Mecklenburg County, Va. William Myer

(1928), in his

study

of

Indian

trails, originally indicated the crossing of this

path

in the

same

vicinity as indicated

by Byrd,

Mitchell, Jefferson,

and Fray and

othercartographers

and

surveyors.

Swanton, on

the other

hand,

while editing the

manuscript

prior to

posthumous

publication of

Myer's

article,

changed

the course of the

path

so that

it crosses in the vicinity of the islands at the confluence of the

Dan

and Staunton Rivers

in order to fit a

statement

issued

by Byrd

that at

one time

the Occaneechi, Saponi,

and Tutelo occupied

these three islands.

Mooney

goes along

with Byrd; BushneU quotes Mooney; and Swanton and

later writers

quote both Mooney and Bushnell without going back and checking

the original sources as to the validity of the later studies.

With

this as the case

we have no

actual proof:

(1) that the three tribes ever actually

occupied

contiguous islands at the confluence of the

two

rivers in

Mecklenburg County,

Va.; (2) that the so-called

Occaneechi

Trail ever

passed

across the

middle

island of the

group —

^the

^one

^{attributed to the}

Occaneechi; and

(3)

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EASTERN SIOUAN PROBLEM — ^MILLER 183