A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians

Gatschet, Albert S. A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians. Pub. D.G. Brinton, Philadelphia, 1884.

Timucua Indian Tribe

In the sixteenth century the Timucua inhabited the northern and middle portion of the peninsula of Florida, and although their exact limits to the north are unknown, they held a portion of Florida bordering on Georgia, and some of the coast islands in the Atlantic Ocean, as Guale (then the name of Amelia) and others. The more populous settlements of these Indians lay on the eastern coast of Florida, along the St. John’s river and its tributaries, and in the northeastern angle of the Gulf of Mexico. Their southernmost villages known to us were Hirrihigua, near Tampa Bay, and Tucururu, … Read more

Thornton’s Translation of the Migration Legend of the Creek People

Page 1 from the Migration Legend

In 2015, after many years of searching, Richard Thornton found the impossible, the original Migration Legend of the Creek People. Gatschet in his famed manuscript which greatly covered this legend stated emphatically “The chances of rediscovering the original English translation of the Migration Legend of the Creek People are therefore almost as slim as recovering the lost books of Livy’s History.” That original English translation still remains lost as Gatschet predicted. But why settle for the English translation when you can find the original? The following is Thornton’s transcription from the original velum of the Migration Legend. Thornton indicates in our introduction that when “the original document, written by Thomas Christie, was finally discovered in 2015, the translation of the German text was found to be not so accurate or complete as Gatschet had presumed. Although the texts of the two documents follow the same general pattern, there were changes made in some of the passages that completely changed the meanings of certain phrases and sentences. Also, some sentences were presented in reverse order.”

Here we present, Richard Thornton’s modern translation:

The Southern Families Of Indians

The early explorers of the Gulf territories have left to posterity a large amount of information concerning the natives whom they met as friends or fought as enemies. They have described their picturesque attire, their curious, sometimes awkward, habits and customs, their dwellings and plantations, their government in times of peace and war, as exhaustively as they could do, or thought fit to do. They distinguished tribes from confederacies, and called the latter kingdoms and empires, governed by princes, kings and emperors. But the characteristics of race and language, which are the most important for ethnology, because they are the … Read more

The Hitchiti Language

The Hitchiti Dialect of the Maskoki language family is analogous, though by no means identical with the Creek dialect in its grammatic out lines. Many points of comparison will readily suggest them selves to our readers, and enable us to be comparatively short in the following sketch. The female dialect is an archaic form of Hitchiti parallel to archaic Creek; both were formerly spoken by both sexes. Only the common form (or male language) of Hitchiti will be considered here. Hitchiti Phonetics The Hitchiti phonetic system is the same as in Creek, except that the sonant mutes, b, g, are … Read more

The Creek Warrior Class

The geographic position of the Creeks in the midst of warlike and aggressive nations was a powerful stimulant for making “invincibles” of their male offspring. The ruling passion was that of war; second to it was that of hunting. A peculiar incentive was the possession of war-titles, and the rage for these was as strong among the younger men as that for plunder among the older. The surest means of ascending the ladder of honor was the capture of scalps from the enemy, and the policy of the red or bloody towns was that of fostering the warlike spirit by … Read more

The Creek Settlements

The towns and villages of the Creeks were in the eighteenth century built along the banks of rivers and their smaller tributaries, often in places subject to inundation during large freshets, which occurred once in about fifteen years. The smallest of them contained from twenty to thirty cabins, some of the larger ones up to two hundred, and in 1832 Tukabatchi, then the largest of all the Creek settlements, harbored 386 families. Many towns appeared rather compactly built, although they were composed of irregular clusters of four to eight houses standing together; each of these clusters contained a gens (“clan … Read more

The Creek Language

The Creek Dialect of Maskoki is a harmonious, clearly vocalized form of speech, averse to nasalization. In forms it is exceedingly rich, but its syntax is very simple and undeveloped. An archaic form, called the female language, exists outside of the common Creek, and mainly differs from it in the endings of the verbs. Creek possesses all sounds of the general Maskoki alphabet; but here and in Hitchiti the gutturals g, k, χ are often pronounced with the tongue resting upon the fore or alveolar part of the palate. The alternating processes observed here also occur in most other Indian … Read more

The Creek Indian Trails

Georgia Indian Trails and Early Roads

A correct and detailed knowledge of the Indian trails leading through their country, and called by them warpaths, horse trails, and by the white traders “trading roads,” forms an important part of Indian topography and history. Their general direction is determined by mountain ranges and gaps (passes), valleys, springs, watercourses, fordable places in rivers, etc. The early explorers of North American countries all followed these Indian trails: Narvaez, Hernando de Soto, Tristan de Luna, Juan del Pardo, Lederer and Lawson, because they were led along these tracks by their Indian guides. If we knew with accuracy the old Indian paths … Read more

The Creek Government

The social organization of all the Indian nations of America is based upon the existence of the tribe. The tribe itself is based upon smaller units of individuals which are joined together by a common tie; this tie is either the archaic maternal descent, or the more modern tie of paternal descent, or a combination of both. Among the Indians of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, and also among many tribes west of them, the single groups descending from the same male or female ancestor form each a gens provided with a proper name or totem generally recalling … Read more

The Chahta Language

Editor’s Note: Cha’hta is a derivative for Choctaw, so the following information is referencing the Choctaw Language. The Cha’hta Language, the representative of the western group of Maskoki dialects, differs in its phonetics from the eastern dialects chiefly by the more general vocalic nasalization previously alluded to. Words cannot begin with two consonants; the Creek st is replaced by sht, and combinations like tl, bt, nt do not occur (Byington’s Grammar, p. 9). In short words the accent is laid upon the penultima. The cases of the noun are not so distinctly marked as they are in the eastern dialects … Read more

The Annual Creek Busk

The solemn annual festival held by the Creek people of ancient and modern days is the púskita, a word now passed into provincial English (busk); its real meaning is that of a fast. In the more important towns it lasted eight days; in towns of minor note four days only, and its celebration differed in each town in some particulars. The day on which to begin it was fixed by the míko and his council, and depended on the maturity of the maize crop and on various other circumstances.