The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1921-03-18
~BY.WAYS OF STATE HIsTORYS
The End of the Tail
3 9 9 o o o 9 o 9 O 8 o 9 9 o
j. w. Daniel in S., C. Advocate
Concluded From Last Week.

j. w. Daniel in S. G. Advocate .
Concluded From Last Week.
In the year 1880 an old mountain
eer told me the story Of the Indian
maid who saved her lover at Ninety
Six, and gave me the additional in
formation that in her escape after
she and her pale-face lover had been
captured, how in her flight she leaped
down the chasm made by Isaqueena
falls and that her pursuers supposed
that she was drowned in the pool at
the base of. the falls, and that ever
afterwards the falls were called lsa-
queena by the Cherokees. He could
give me no clue to the meaning OF
Isaqueena, but said she had leaped
down only about twelve or fifteen
feet, caught a,foothold on a protrud-
ing boulder and darted behind the
leaping volume of water that poured
over shelving rock making the first
cascade, then, dashing downward into
the boiling cauldron at the base OF the
falls sixty feet below. The tradition
declared that when she recognized
that her pursuers had given up the
chase, supposing her to have been
crushed on the. rocks and her body
submerged in the boiling pool below,
she climbed from her hiding place and
leaving no trail behind them, they
Joined her lover below the falls, and,
walking down the bed of the creek,
reached the Tpgaioo and fiQated down
that. stream in dug-out and then
down the Savannah to safe distance
from the Indian settlements. and
came at last to the weak trading post
at Ninety-Six.
In my Investigation of the meaning
of CateecheeS / discovered that eche
was not Cherokee but Creek word
which means deer. The Creek term
for. horse is ech-o-cluc-co, literally,
deer large or great, as we would say,
large deer. However, there were
many Utsi, or Creek wordsin the
Cherokee language; their word for
rabbit was eche, precisely the Creek
word for deer. The Cherokees held
the rabbit in contempt but almost
the sdeers GEsWas. flds WHY
they adopted Creek word as their
name fer rabbit? The supposition IS
thonoughly in accord with the naiVete
of the Indians. The word for deer
in Cherokee was A-hoW-We.
1t must be remembered that Cat
eechee was a Choctaw slave, there
fore, held in contempt. Did they
change her Choctaw name to Catee-
chez, embodyiGg in the name the
Greek name for deer and their name
for RABBIT in contempt for her tribe?
1t would have been :, thoroughly lip
keeping with their idea of fidm5r and
satire. Again, they may have su9-
s.ituted the Creek term because, as
! have already said The deer was held
in highest esteem by them, they con-
neeted it, in thought and practice,
with the worship of their god Yo-he-
wah. Therefore, they gave the Choc-
taw slave girl the Greek name for
deer ard their name for rabbit, other
wise her name would have been hu-
initiating to them. -
Fl is remarkable, and very inter
esting to the student of our Indian
languages, that both Cateechee and
Isaaueena are hybred words, yet they
preserve intact the original name OF
the Choctaw slave g.1l. For the pur-
pose of making this plain to my read
ers T will analyse the two words into
their component elements and trace
the souEce of each element. K, in
Choctaw, is used IS the sign OF the
definite article, a is used to designate
head Of. It is also frequently SO
used il tne Cherokee cialect; for ex-
ample, Oconee is somea me; written
Ae-eoaa, from A Ersheadaf" and ooka5
water. Therefore, k, the sign Of the
definite article, A, head-of, and ache,
deer, put together without regard to
euphony, would be Ka-t-che, bu. eu-
phonicany written or spoken, Ka-tee-
chez, Head of the deer. In our spell
ing C-asard is substituted for K.
In Choctaw Isl means deer and
hi-na means roads, path or way. In
Cherokee heena means the same. One
easily notices the similarity Of the