The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-14

with me many of the Creeks, who could point out the places where the Spaniards under De Soto had camped, and the marks of old roadways and causeways which they had built were then plainly visible
 The accounts that have had from the Indians and from Colonel Hawkins are that Cortezs object was gold, and that were highly civilized and very gentle and timid; and after subduing them and talk ing posse seion of the City of Mexico, he then extel1ed his conquests up the gulf coast in the direction of what is now Tampico and Tamaulipas, and even as far as what is now Texas, where he en- countered the Musquas or Muscogees, Alabamas and other tribes that I have mentioned; but finding them to be a much more hardy, war-like race than the Mexicans, and in order to hold on to what he had taken and subdued of the timid ones, he found 1t necessary to kill or drive these war-li5e tribes from the country which, with the great advantage of firearms he succeeded in doing.
 The Muscogees and their confederates called a halt at Red Slick, or Club, now known as the city of Baton Rouge, La. The Witches, from the river which bears their name in Texas. crossed the Missis- sippi river and settled where the City of Natchez Is now. The Choctaws settled the country on Yazoo. Pearl, Leaf, Chick asawha and as far as the Tombeckbee river. The Chickasaws settled on a beau tiful bluff on the east bank of the Mis- sissippi river, called for them Chickasaw bluff and is now the site of the flourish ing city of Memphis, Tenn The Creeks, after a short stay at Baton Rouge, re- moved and settled on the Alabama river and It's tributaries, the Black Warrior and the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers; and in the course of time, went as far east as the Oconee river but never went any farther In that direction, and did not make any settlement on the Oconee until after the whites began to encroach on the Indians of that country from the east. The Sowanokees are known among the whites as the Shawnees, but the Indians knew them by no other name but So- wanokee, and the Savannah river was known as Sowanokee Hatchee Thlocka, which signifies "the Big River of the Glades"
 The Indians that originally inhabited from the middle parts of the Carolinas, especially South Carolina, and Georgia to the seaboard, were known as Yamacraws or Yamasees, Oconees, Ogeeches, and Sowanokees, or People of the Glades, and these Indians the Creeks found to be their equals as warriors; but when the whites began to approach them from the east, and the Creeks very close on the west, the Sowanokees, or Shawnees, went to the north and northwest The celebrated Indian warrior Tecumseh was of this stock.
 The other little tribes, with the Uchees, they being the ''same freside' Indians, as also were the Shawnees, all dwindled away among the Creeks and lost their own language, except the Uchees, who still retain theirs.
 There was a peculiar arrangement among the Cheeks that differed from all other tribes that I knew, or travelled among. They are laid off in families, such as the Bears, Tigers, Deers, Wolves Foxes, and almost all the animals that were known to them. All these families had certain privileges, except the Wind family, who seemed to be the aristocrats of the tribe. as they were allowed more privileges than all the rest. For instance, when an offender escaped from justice, all the families were permitted to pursue certain number Of days and no more. The Wind family had the right to pursue and capture at any time, there being no limitations set upon them. Cousins were allowed to marry, but not in the same family. A woman in the Bear family could not wed Bear, but must accept husband from the Foxes, Wolves, Deers, etc. If woman of the Fox family mar ried Bear, the children were all Foxes, it being their rule to call them by their
  fathers. Such has been the custom among the Creeks from the earliest times, but their intercourse whh the whites has changed many of their old habits and customs. They soon learned to call a horse Chelocko, but originally it was Echo Tlocko, signifying a Big Deer. Echo is a deer, and Tlocko means something large. The first horses the Creeks ever saw were those introduced by the Span iards; and they called them Big Deer, as they resembled that animal more than any other they knew or had ever seen.
 James Mcqueen was a very intelligent man and had taken great pains to make himself acquainted with the history of the Creeks. From what learned of him and his friends, and also from him direct, that the Muscogees (called by all the other tribes Musquas), and all the little towns or bands of people that com posed what we all call the Creek con- federacy, was of the same organization before they crossed to the east of the Mississippi river from their far-off home in the west. Translated into English. Muscogee, or Musqua, means Indepen- dent I knew a Capt. John s. Porter, formerly of the United States army, some 30 years ago (about the years 1897 and 1S2S) with few Creeks of the Mcintosh party In Arkansas, visited California and went up the Pacific coast to the Columbia river and returned by the way of Salt Lake, in Utah territory, and upon his re- turn to Arkansas he wrote to me, giving an account of his travels. which I found very interesting; he said that on the headwaters of the Colorado of the west he found small remnant of the original Musqua Indians. They spoke mostly broken Spanish dialect, but still retained most of their old language and old fam fly customs. They gave the same account of being driven from their old homes that I have learned from the Creek Indians in Alabama. This band of Indians in formed Captain Porter that their nation languages; that they inhabited the coun- try between the Rio del Norte and Mis- sissippi river, or Owea Coafka (river of cane). It should be explained here that each distinct tribe of Indians had name for the principal rivers, just as the English, French and Spanish would, and hence the different names in the pe- cullar dialect of each tribe Or nation for the Great Father of Waters" And Owea Coafl1a is what the Alabama Creek Indians always called the Mississippi they originally lived near the Gulf of Mexico, on what they called Owea Thlocko Marine, signifying ." the largest water" and were driven off by the Echo Thlock Ulgees, or horsemen; or what tho Greeks in our language would call 'the big deer men," According to MT. Hooper. 'the word Ulgee Is rather a Creek Indian termination which applies the antecedent description to a person or persons. It answers to our ian. Thus, a Creek Indian would call Carolinian a Carolinulgee."
 Long after they left their old homes.
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