In the history of the Creeks, and in their legends of migration, many
references occur to the tribes around them, with whom they came in
contact. These contacts were chiefly of a hostile character, for the
normal state of barbaric tribes is to live in almost permanent mutual
conflicts. What follows is an attempt to enumerate and sketch them,
the sketch to be of a prevalently topographic nature. We are not
thoroughly acquainted with the racial or anthropological peculiarities
of the nations surrounding the Maskoki proper on all sides, but in
their languages we possess an excellent help for classifying them.
Language is not an absolute indicator of race, but it is more so in
America than elsewhere, for the _large number_ of linguistic families
in the western hemisphere proves that the populations speaking their
dialects have suffered less than in the eastern by encroachment,
foreign admixture, forcible alteration or entire destruction.
Beginning at the southeast, we first meet the historic Timucua family,
the tribes of which are extinct at the present time; and after
describing the Indians of the Floridian Peninsula, southern extremity,
we pass over to the Yuchi, on Savannah river, to the Naktche, Taensa
and the other stocks once settled along and beyond the mighty Uk'hina,
or "water road" of the Mississippi river.