state-craft ever produced by the Cherokees. While a youth he
accompanied Sir Alexander Cuming to England, in 1730, and the
impression he there received of the power of Great Britain had much to
do with his friendly attitude towards the English and against the
French. At that time his name was Unwanequa (Onconecaw in South
Carolina records) but changed, according to Cherokee custom, to
Chuconnunta, and later to Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter).
Timberlake (1762) speaking of the two factions, says that he had a
large faction of the Cherokees with him since “policy and art are the
greatest steps to power.” Williams, _Memoirs_, 95. In 1757, he was
addressed by Dinwiddie as second in power to Old Hop, and he urged
that governor to send him again to England. His activities were too
numerous to be incorporated in a footnote. He was born in what is now
East Tennessee on the Big Island of the French Broad River (Sevier’s
Island) which one of the war-trails of the Cherokees passed. He died
about 1782, “about the termination, or a little after, of the American
War” or the Revolution. He was small of stature, slender and of
delicate frame—so described by two writers who came in contact with
him: Williams, _Wm. Tatham, Wataugan_, 21; Bartram, _Travels_, 362.
Felix Walker, once a Wataugan and later a member of Congress from
North Carolina, describes his appearance in 1775: “He was said to be
about ninety years of age; a very small man, and so lean and
light-habited that I scarcely believe he would have exceeded more in
weight than a pound for each year of his life. He was marked with two
large scares or scarfs on each cheek. He was the most celebrated and
influential Indian among all the tribes then known; considered as the
Solon of his day.” Walker saw the Little Carpenter at the
Henderson-Cherokee treaty, at Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga in March,
1775. The only portrait of him in existence is reproduced in Williams,
_Early Travels in the Tennessee Country_.
Footnote 34:
For description and illustration: Jones, _Antiquities of the Southern
Indians_, 516; Thruston, _Antiquities of Tennessee_, 321, 331;
Harrington, _Cherokee and Earlier Remains on Upper Tennessee River_,
246, 286; Moore, _Aboriginal Sites on Tennessee River_, 381, _et
seq._, and Jones, _Explorations of Aboriginal Remains of Tennessee_,
136.
Footnote 35:
Lord Kingsborough says that Don Jose Cortes is in accord in his
_Memorias_; and seeks to reenforce the argument by citing Deut., 18th
Chapter.
Footnote 36:
Myths of a jewel from serpents were common among the American Indians.
Talismanic stones were carefully kept and reverently regarded. See
Williams, _Memoirs of Timberlake_, 73, 75, and Mooney, _Myths_, 459.
Footnote 37:
The John Howard Payne MSS. treat of the holy fire amply: “The most
active and efficient agent appointed by the Sun to take care of
mankind was supposed to be the fire. When, therefore, very special
favor was needed, it was made known to Fire, accompanied by an
offering. It was considered as an immediate being nearest the Sun and
received homage from the Cherokees as the same element did from the
Eastern Magi.... The altar in the center of the national heptagon was
constructed of a conical shape, of fresh earth. A circle was drawn
around the top to receive the fire of sacrifice. Upon this was laid,
ready for use, the inner bark of seven kinds of trees. This bark was
carefully chosen from the east side of the trees, and was clear and
free of blemish.... Early in the morning seven persons who were
commissioned to kindle the fire commenced their operations.... A round
hole being made in a block of wood, a small quantity of dry golden-rod
weed was placed in it. A stick, the end of which just fitted the
opening, was whirled rapidly until the weed took fire.” Buttrick, for
many years a missionary among the Cherokees, in Tennessee and after
their removal, says the “new fire” was made by rubbing two pieces of
dry wood together with dry golden-rod between them. _Antiquities_, 9.
Buttrick further says golden-rod was in Cherokee anagestaluga or
light-bearer; and, of the fire, that it was required that “no torch be
lighted by it, nor a coal taken from it for common use.”
Footnote 38:
Kingsborough adds that the Jews believed that divination did not fall
exclusively to men, citing the instance of Huldah, II Kings, Chapter
22, also, Nehem. V: 14.
Footnote 39:
Adair here describes the thanksgiving ceremonial, the Green Corn
Dance, called the busk by the Creeks (puskita or boosketau). Yet
fuller accounts by John Howard Payne, the poet, who was among the
Cherokees, (1835) may be found. He made observations and wrote
voluminously of their festivals. Payne MSS. Ayers Collection, Newberry
Library, Chicago. Payne contributed an article to _Continental
Monthly_ (New York, 1862) on the Green Corn Dance, in which it is set
forth that it is the second of the six great festivals of the year,
held when the young corn first becomes fit to eat; and that “at every
green corn festival the sacred square is strewn with soil yet
untrodden.” Squier, in his _Serpent Symbol_, 67, drawing on the Payne
MSS., quotes the poet as entertaining the view that the festival was a
survival of the ancient solar worship of the Cherokees. The other
account referred to is by Benjamin Hawkins in his _Sketch of the Creek
Country_, 75, reproduced in Bartram’s _Observations on the Creek and
Cherokee Indians_, 67, and in Hodge’s _Handbook_, I, 176. See
Bartram’s own lively account in _Travels_, 448, 507, and Timberlake’s
in _Memoirs_, 64 (Williams edition) 88. A good description based on
Hawkins and Swan (Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, V, 267) appears in
Gatschet, _Migration Legend of the Creeks_, 177 _et seq._ Gatschet
concludes with the observation: “Many analogies can be traced with
well-known customs among the Aztecs and Maya Indians.” For the Green
Corn Dance of the Iroquois, kinsmen of the Cherokees, see Morgan,
_League of the Iroquois_, I, 176, 190. Generally, Jones, _Antiquities
of Southern Indians_, 99 _et seq._
Footnote 40:
West Florida, or the present South Mississippi.
Footnote 41:
Sec. p. 442 _post_. The taboo touching raw meat and of its
purification is based upon the common belief among primitive peoples
that the soul or spirit of the animal is in its blood. Frazer in
_Golden Bough_ says that it was held even by the Romans, Arabs and
Chinese medical writers. Payne says that the belief in the efficiency
of fire “extended to smoke which was esteemed Fire’s messenger, always
ready to convey the petition above. A child immediately after birth
was waived over the fire”—a custom, says Logan, that survived “even to
this day in the practice of the Scotch Highlanders to pass a child
over the fire,” by way of purification. _Upper South Carolina_, I,
213.
Footnote 42:
See Mooney, _Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees_, 335, 379.
Footnote 43:
See p. 7 _ante._ The instrument, kanuga, used in skin scratching, is
described by Mooney in his _Cherokee Ball Play_, 121, his _Sacred
Formulas of the Cherokees_, 334-5, and his _Siouan Tribes of the
East_, 71.
Footnote 44:
On anointing a woman’s head and hair with bear-oil mixed with
scarlet-root, see Lawson, _History of North Carolina_, 101. On
bear-oil as a cosmetic, p 446 _post_.
Footnote 45:
Mooney says that the institution of the menstrual lodge obtained among
all Indian tribes. _Myths_, 469. Beatty in his _Two Months Tour Among
the Indian Tribes_, fixes the period in the lodge at seven days, and
says “the person who brings her victuals is very careful not to touch
her, and so cautious is she of touching her food with her own hands
that she makes use of a sharpened stick.... A woman who is delivered
of a child is separated likewise for a time.” For Boudinot’s treatment
of the subject: _Star of the West_, 277.
Footnote 46:
Travail. Mooney, _Ib._, and Hodge, _Handbook_, II, 973.
Footnote 47:
Pickett’s _History of Alabama_, 142; and Williams, _Memoirs of
Timberlake_, 90. Lord Kingsborough quotes Las Casas, _Historia
Apologetica_, as confirming fear of pollution by touching a dead body:
“All who had touched dead bodies went to bathe themselves that no
infirmity might befall them.”
Footnote 48:
Mourning, confirmation; Boudinot, _Star of the West_, 183.
Footnote 49:
Adair presses the argument of Jewish descent too far as respects the
hog as food. Williams, _Memoirs of Timberlake_, 72; Bartram’s
_Observations_, 47. However, Cotton Mather in his _Life of John Eliot_
says of the Northern tribes: “They have a great unkindness for our
swine.”
Footnote 50:
What is known as sympathetic or homeopathic magic. The conception had
wide acceptance among primitives. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, VIII, 139;
Mooney, _Myths_, 472.
Footnote 51:
Lord Kingsborough at this point takes issue with Adair so far as
concerns the Indians of South America, referring to Las Casas, _op.
cit._ Chapter 178; but saying, also, that Adair was led to the belief
he expresses by the customs prevailing in North America, as to which
Las Casas confirms Adair’s denial of the practice there, in his
Chapter 224; this, on the authority of Cabeza de Vaca who states that
the Indians of Florida and the Southern Mississippi Valley held
cannibalism in extreme abhorence. But that a few tribes of North
America, in Texas, were cannibals, see Swanton, _Lower Tribes_, 360.
Footnote 52:
Lord Kingsborough quotes Mackenzie as saying that the Dog-ribbed
Indians appeared to him to be all circumcised. See also, Boudinot,
_Star of the West_, 113.
Footnote 53:
“The Indians never used to eat a certain sinew in the thigh. The name
of this sinew in Cherokee is u-wa-sta-to. Some say that if they eat
the sinew they will cramp in it [the same sinew] on attempting to
run.” Buttrick, _Antiquities of the Cherokees_, 12. Further
corroborated by Hodgson, _Letters from North America_, I, 224, and as
to the Canadian Indians by Frazer, _Golden Bough_, VIII, 265. Also,
see Mooney, _Sacred Formulas_, 323, _Myths_, 447.
Footnote 54:
On marriage consult: Jones, _Antiquities of Southern Indians_, 65;
Swanton, _Lower Tribes_, 94; Bartram’s _Observations_, 65.
Footnote 55:
Punishment for adultery seems to have varied with almost every tribe.
Du Pratz, _History of Louisiana_, II, 197. Bossu says of the Choctaws:
“If a woman commits an infidelity, she must _pass through the meadow_,
i.e., all the young men, and sometimes, the old ones, satisfy their
brutality on her by turns.” _Travels_, I, 308. Among the Alabama
Indians he describes a different punishment. _Ib._, 233. Bartram’s
_Travels_, 512. Adair’s is by far the best and fullest account.
Footnote 56:
Lord Kingsborough refers here to Isaac and Rebecca, Genesis, 24: 14.
Footnote 57:
“In case of murder, the next of blood is obliged to kill the murderer
or else he is looked upon as infamous in the nation where he lives.”
Gen. Oglethorpe in _Gentlemen’s Magazine_, 1733, p. 413. See also
Cushman, _History of the Indians_, 495.
Footnote 58:
See as to these Shawnees, note on p. 2 _ante._; and Swanton, _Early
History of Creeks_, 318-19.
Footnote 59:
Kingsborough refers for corroboration to the statement of Las Casas,
_Historia Apologetica_, Chapter 141, respecting cities of refuge among
the ancients in Mexico. As to North America: Mooney, _Myths_, 207.
Footnote 60:
Variously spelled: Chota, Chote, Echota, Chotah, Choto, Chotee,
Chateauke, Chotte, and as above. Probably the earliest English account
is that of James Needham in Williams, _Early Travels in the Tennessee
Country_, 27, see also pp. 152, 263, 472, and, for the reverence for
“the old beloved town,” 497. Timberlake, (1762) refers to it as the
metropolis of the country, _Memoirs_, 58, 99, 117; Ramsey’s _Annals of
Tennessee_, _passim_. The beloved town was spared in the destruction
of the Cherokee towns by Col. Wm. Christian, in 1776.
Footnote 61:
See later note.
Footnote 62:
In early chronicles “Cusa” and other variations; largest town of the
Upper Creeks; entered by De Soto July 16, 1540; in the present
Talladega County, Ala., east of and near to Coosa River.
Footnote 63:
Kingsborough here cites Morfi in corroboration.
Footnote 64:
Morfi’s _History of the Province of Texas_, and Tanner’s _Narrative of
Thirty Year’s Residence among the Indians_, are cited by Lord
Kingsborough.
Footnote 65:
Boudinot, _Star of the West_, 176; and Mooney, _Myths_, 503, quoting
Washburn, _Reminiscences_, 191, 121, on the capture of the ark of the
Cherokees by the Delaware Indians, to the loss of which the old
priests of the Cherokees ascribed the later degeneracy of their
people. Buttrick, _Antiquities_, 12, refers to the ark covered with
deer-skin “to be set up when they rested and carried when they
journeyed.”
Footnote 66:
Corroboration: Bartram, _Travels_, 495.
Footnote 67:
This is true, also, of the Sauk, Fox and Kickapoo Indians of the West.
Morse’s _Rep. Ind. Affairs_, Appendix, p. 130; Wilkes, _Narrative of
the U. S. Expedition_, III, 78, and Schoolcraft, _Information Indian
Tribes_, IV, 63. Frazer, in his _Golden Bough_, says that the custom
is observed by tribes in Australia, Malaya and Africa.
Footnote 68:
On treatment of captives: Hodge, _Handbook_, I, 203, and, in addition,
Smith, _Account of Remarkable Occurrences_, _passim_.
Footnote 69:
In this year the Chickasaws destroyed the French Ft. Massac on the
Ohio, near the mouth of Tennessee River, in the Illinois Country.
Alvord and Carter, _New Regime_, 132.
Footnote 70:
On the Chickasaws (led by Piomingo, the “Mountain Leader” referred to
as “leader” by Adair) in this campaign, and their great aid to the
British: Williams, _Early Travels in the Tennessee Country_, 216, and
his _Beginnings of West Tennessee_, 29.
Footnote 71:
See the Cherokees’ reception of Sir Alexander Cuming, described by
Cuming: Williams, _Early Travels in the Tennessee Country_, 135 _et
seq._
Footnote 72:
See Jones, _Antiquities of the Southern Indians_, 370, 500, 505, 514,
521; Harrington, _Cherokee Remains on Upper Tennessee_, 77, 82, 136,
286; and for gems found in the Cherokee Country, Williams, _Memoirs of
Timberlake_, 73.
Footnote 73:
The literature on the American Indians is fully corroborative.
Footnote 74:
A gourd or calabash set with gems was a mark of sacerdotal dignity
among the ancients of Mexico. (Kingsborough.)
Footnote 75:
The ancients of Mexico also had a superstitious regard for the eagle,
whose effigy they emblazoned on their shields. (Lord Kingsborough.)
Footnote 76:
Natchez Indians, as refugees among the Chickasaws after the wars with
the French.
Footnote 77:
There was a similar superstition as to the power of witches—that they
could assume animal forms. Kingsborough, _Antiquities of Mexico_, VI,
121. Supplementing incantations, the Indians resorted to the regimen
of abstinence, but also to herbs. Among these: lobelia, sassafras,
white nettle, swamp-lily, may-apple, ginseng, white-root, wild senna,
etc. The best list and account is by Mooney, _Sacred Formulas_, 322
_et seq._ See others mentioned by Adair, on p. 388 _post_.
Footnote 78:
The Jews waited seven months. (Kingsborough.)
Footnote 79:
For illustrations of scaffolds, Hodge, _Handbook_, I, 946.
Footnote 80:
To same effect: Jones, _Antiquities of Southern Indians_, 202, citing
Brickell’s _Natural History of North Carolina_, 380; and see Swanton,
_Lower Tribes_, 365. Starr, a Cherokee historian, says that these
aboriginal burial customs were abandoned for those of the white race,
by 1800. _Early History of the Cherokees_, 20.
Footnote 81:
Bartram, practically in accord, describes the burial customs of the
Creeks. _Travels_, 514; and see Roman, _A Concise Natural History of
East and West Florida_, 71, 89; Bossu, _Travels_, I, 257.
Footnote 82:
Mourning customs varied in different tribes. See, generally, Hodge,
_Handbook_, 951, and Swanton, _Early Creeks_, 372 _et seq._ Twelve
months was the period for the widow’s mourning among the Chickasaws.
Cushman, _History of the Indians_, 497.
Footnote 83:
Confirmed by Juan Morfi in his _History of Province of Texas_.
(Kingsborough.)
Footnote 84:
In accord: Lawson’s _History of Carolina_, 187.
Footnote 85:
Swanton, _Early Creeks_, 13.
Footnote 86:
This fact is confusing to a researcher. For example, three names, each
at various stages of their careers, were borne by the Cherokee chiefs
Attakullakulla and Ostenaco.
Footnote 87:
Schoolcraft, _Information Indian Tribes_, I, 309 _et seq._, gives the
story as told by old men of the Chickasaws: That tribe came from the
West; a part of the tribe remaining in the West. The migrants carried
a pole which they planted in the ground at night, and the next morning
they would go in the direction it was found to be leaning. They
continued eastward across the Mississippi until they arrived at
Chickasaw Old Fields, where, the pole standing erect, they settled.
Cushman (_History of the Choctaw, etc., Indians_, 62) gives the same
tradition as being handed down by old men to missionaries in 1820, and
that the Indians at the time named the “great water” Misha Sipokni
(the Mississippi). Buttrick gives a migration legend of the Chickasaws
coming from the West across a great river; and the tradition fixes the
crossing place at the bluffs, later known as the Chickasaw Bluffs, on
one of which stands the city of Memphis.
Footnote 88:
Consult Swanton, _Lower Tribes_, 252.
Footnote 89:
Lord Kingsborough’s comment: This criticism from a person wholly
ignorant of the Spanish language, as was Adair, cannot carry weight.
Adair did not know that many of the Spanish monks and friars advocated
his theory of the Indians being descendants from the Jews. Had he
been, it is probable that he would have spoken more respectfully of
them.
Footnote 90:
The reference here, doubtless, is to Colden’s use of yo-ha-han in his
book on the Northern Indians. Boudinot, in the _Star of the West_,
234, says: “The Indians to the northward are said by Mr. Colden, a
laborious sensible writer, to repeat yo-ha-han, which, if true,
evinces that their corruption advances in proportion as they are
distant from South America. It was a material, or rather an essential,
mistake to write yo-ha-han, as it is confounding two religious words
together. Mr. Adair was assured by Sir William Johnson, as well as by
Rev. Mr. Ogilvie, a missionary with the Mohawks, that the Northern
Indians always pronounced the words of their songs, _y-ho-he_, _a_ or
_ah_; and so Mr. Colden altered them in the second edition of his
history.”
Footnote 91:
The reference is to Girolamo Benzoni, and his book, _La Historia del
Mondo Nuovo_, published in Venice, 1572.
Footnote 92:
Kingsborough says that the Mexicans had a name for God—Tezcatlipca.
Footnote 93:
Kingsborough says that Adair’s dislike of Romanists leads to unfair
comments on their historians; and wonders what translation of Roman
Adair could have consulted in which it was possible to find so great
an absurdity as is here stated on Roman’s authority.
Footnote 94:
Kingsborough points out a mistake in the insertion of “not,” p. 370,
n. 44.
Footnote 95:
Adair was ignorant of the nature of the llama, to which species of
animals the Spaniards gave the name “sheep.” (Kingsborough, n. 47.)
Footnote 96:
Published his _Noticias Americanas_ in 1772, but seems not to be rated
high on the history of the very early Indians. Adair’s reference to
this work, published only three years before his own, shows that his
MSS. must have been added to, and perhaps after he reached London, for
the purpose of bringing it out.
Footnote 97:
The reference is to Thomas Thorowgood’s book entitled “Jews in
America, or Probabilities, that those Indians are Judaical, made more
probable by some Additionals to the former Conjectures. An Accurate
Discourse is promised by Mr. John Elliot, (who first preached the
gospel to the Natives in their own Language) touching their
Origination, and his Vindication of the Planters. Sm. 4th, London:
Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in Ivie-Lane. 1660.” The book is
rare, selling for $200.00 a copy in 1930.
Footnote 98:
Lord Kingsborough, note 51, calls attention to the well-known fact
that William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, entertained the same
belief. The children of the Indians reminded Penn of the children of
Jews in their quarter of London, known as Old Jewry.
Footnote 99:
See note p. 210 _ante._
Footnote 100:
Kingsborough adds: “Pedro Simon observes that it was customary amongst
some of the Indian Tribes for men, after the confinement of their
wives, to feign sickness and to receive visitors reclining in bed.”
Note 57, p. 374. The same thing is noticed by a later writer.
Footnote 101:
This is the theory at this day held by leading ethnologists. Two
curious statements appear in Boudinot’s _Star of the West_, p. 235:
“Charlevoix, in his history of Canada, says that Father Grillon often
told him that, after having labored sometimes in the missions in
Canada, he returned to France, and went to China. One day, as he was
traveling through Tartary, he met a Huron woman whom he had formerly
known in Canada. She told him that, having been taken in war, she had
been conducted from nation to nation till she arrived at the place
where she then was. There was another missionary, passing by Nantz on
his return from China, who related the like story of a woman he had
seen from Florida in America. She informed him that she had been taken
by certain Indians and given to those of a distant country; and by
these again to another nation till she had been thus successively
passed from country to country; had traveled regions exceedingly cold,
and at last found herself in Tartary, and had there married a Tartar
who had passed with the conquerors into China and there settled.”
Footnote 102:
Lord Kingsborough ends his reprint and comments here, and concludes by
saying that, while Adair had proved his ignorance of the genuine
writings of the Spanish historians, yet their frequent agreement with
his own relation of facts confirms his veracity.
Footnote 103:
The best accounts of the Catawbas are those of two masters in the
field of the history of Southern Indians, Mooney (_Siouan Tribes of
the East_, 67-88) and Gatschet (_Migration Legend of the Creeks_, 15).
John Lederer was among them in 1669-70, and describes them as “a cruel
generation and prey upon people”; their women “delight much in feather
ornaments, of which they have great variety; but hold Peacocks in most
esteem because rare in those parts; the men are more effeminate and
lazy.” _Discoveries_ (1672), Harpel reprint (1879), p. 24. Lawson was
among them in 1701, and gives them the name of Kadaqua. _History of
North Carolina_, 71 _et seq._; and Wm. Byrd in his _History of the
Dividing Line_ has several references to them. Their country was on
the border of the two Carolinas, on the Catawba River. A remnant still
resides in York County, S. C.
Footnote 104:
The great trading path from Virginia to Georgia passed through the
country of the Catawbas, and was known as the “Catawba Path.” This
brought the tribe into close contact with the whites, which was
unfortunate for the redmen, as it tended to their enfeeblement and
decline.
Footnote 105:
See accordant comments of Lederer, as early as 1670, in note above.
Footnote 106:
One of several attempts of the governments of South Carolina and
Georgia to persuade the Chickasaws, hard pressed by the French and
their Choctaw allies, to leave their own country and settle on the
Savannah River. In 1742 Gov. Bull, of South Carolina, warned Lord
Wilmington that French policy looked to the extirpation of the
Chickasaws. The effort to use Adair’s influence on his friends, the
Chickasaws, must have been about 1748, when Vaudreuil was concerting
plans to attack them, as he did in 1752. The Chickasaws were, indeed,
sorely pressed, and their plea went to the “King of Carolina” for the
return to the nation of the Eastern Chickasaws then living on the
Savannah, in order “to enable us to keep our land. ... We hope you
will think of us in our poverty, as we have not had the liberty of
hunting for three years. We have had enough to do to defend our lands
and prevent our women and children being made slaves of the French.”
S. C. Archives (1756) _5 Indian Book_, 123. Two years before (1754)
the Cherokees, induced by the English of South Carolina, actually sent
a delegation to the Chickasaws “in order to escort the remains of that
brave people into the Cherokee nation.” All persuasion was resisted,
and the Chickasaws held their beloved land.
Footnote 107:
The boundary of the Eastern Chickasaws, mentioned in a preceding note,
was described by their chiefs in 1797, while in treaty at Chickasaw
Bluff, site of Memphis: “ten miles square of lands in the State of
South Carolina, opposite Augusta on the Savannah River and Horse
Creek,” a plat of which was, they said, in the possession of the
Secretary of War. This band located there about the end of the
Oglethorpe campaign against St. Augustine.
Footnote 108: