Yuchi Indians Collections – Access Genealogy

Yuchi Tribe History

Among the indigenous tribes of the southeastern United States, living within a territory roughly defined by the borders of Georgia and South Carolina, was one, exhibiting a type of culture common to the inhabitants of the country bordering on the Gulf of Mexico east of the Mississippi river, whose members called themselves Tsoyabá, “Offspring of the Sun,” otherwise known as the Yuchi. Constituting an independent linguistic stock (called Uchean in Powell’s classification), their earliest associations, in so far as these are revealed by history and tradition, were identified with the banks of the Savannah river where they lived at a … Read more

Yuchi Tribe Clothing

For a people living in quite a warm climate the Yuchi, as far back as they have any definite knowledge, seem to have gone about rather profusely clothed, but the descriptions obtained refer only to a time when the white traders’ materials had replaced almost entirely the native products. A bright colored calico shirt was worn by the men next to the skin. Over this was a sleeved jacket reaching, on young men, a little below the waist, on old men and chiefs, below the knees. The shirt hung free before and behind, but was bound around the waist by … Read more

Yuchi Treatment of Disease

The shaman secretes himself with the medicines, and filling a pot with water, steeps them, all the time blowing into the concoction through a hollow cane. This cane is about two and one-half feet long and has three red ribbons tied on it. (See PI. VII, Fig. 1.) This takes place between the stanzas of the appropriate song. Nearly all of the songs are sung four times, then a long blowing is given the medicine, after which it is thought properly charged with magic power. It is then given to the patient, who drinks it and washes in it, applying … Read more

Yuchi Town and Town Square

We now come to the consideration of the Yuchi town. This is the ruling institution in the life of the Yuchi, the same holding true for most of the other southeastern tribes. It has superseded in political importance the other social groupings, and, as far as any governmental activities are carried on at all, they too are the affairs of the town. The societies are represented by officers in town gatherings, while some of the clans have assumed the right to fill the highest town office, as We have seen before. The town is extremely democratic, however, as all of … Read more

Yuchi Symbolism of the Town Square

We shall now return again to the subject of the town square because the religious ceremonies to be described in the following pages are inseparably connected with it. The public square-ground, where all civil and religious events of the town take place, has a symbolical significance which is quite important, and comparable in some respects to the altars and shrines of the southwestern and plains tribes. In its ceremonial aspect the town square is symbolically a rainbow. For, according to the myth of the origin of the Yuchi and their cult, as already given, the mother of the Sun took … Read more

Yuchi Rite of the Emetic

Now that the sun was about at the zenith and the medicines had been steeping in the sun long enough, it was time for the men to take the emetic in accordance with the instructions of the mythical Sun deity who declared that, as long as he rose from the east and beheld his people taking the sacred emetic, he would continue their tribal existence. The first to take the emetic were the town chief and the three other square-ground Chiefs. (See Plate XV, 1.) They were followed by the four square-ground Warriors. Then four more Chiefs and four more … Read more

Yuchi Religion

In treating other subjects frequent mention has been made, heretofore, of various religious beliefs connected with different phases of life, of the ideas which the Yuchi hold regarding the supernatural realm, and how they maintain their relations with the latter by means of rites and ceremonies. An attempt will now be made to give as many of these beliefs as could be gotten in order to present as clearly as possible an idea of the religious life of the tribe. In the earliest mythological time about which anything at all is known, there existed only a certain realm of water … Read more

Yuchi Pottery

The sedentary life of the Yuchi has given ample opportunity for the development of the art of making pottery. The coiled process is in vogue, but it may be remarked that the modern pots of these Indians are of a rather crude and unfinished form, which is probably traceable to deterioration in later years. The process of manufacture of ordinary pots for domestic use is as follows. A fine consistent clay is selected and washed in a flat vessel to separate all grit and stones from it. Then lumps are rolled between the palms and elongated in the form of … Read more

Yuchi Population

At the present day the Yuchi are located in the northwestern part of the Creek nation, where they have been since the removal in 1836. They inhabit the well-watered hills in the section known locally as the Cross Timber, a thinly wooded tract running in a general northerly and southerly direction through central Oklahoma, the last extensive frontier of timber on the south-western prairies marking the old boundaries of Oklahoma and Indian Territory. There are in this region three so-called settlements of Yuchi, called respectively Polecat, Sand Creek and Big Pond by the whites. All of these settlements are distributed … Read more

Yuchi Pipe Making

A large number of tobacco pipes of clay, sacu’yud?c’, ‘earth pipes’ (Fig. 11), were formerly made and used by the Yuchi. The variety in form shown by these pipes indicates that at an earlier time work in clay must have been a rather important activity with them. It seems that pipe making was, and is yet to a limited extent, practiced by the men. Clay is prepared in the manner described before for pots, and made into lengths about an inch in diameter. With a knife, cylinders of various lengths are cut out which are to be bent and hollowed … Read more

Yuchi New Fire Rite

The new fire rite performed at sunrise of the second day, is symbolic of a new period of life for the tribe. As far as could be learned, the fires of the various household hearths are not extinguished as among the Creeks, since the kindling of the new fire by the town chief is symbolical of this and suffices for all.

Yuchi Mythology

Some of the most important mythologic accounts have been given in the description of religious beliefs and need not be repeated. If the following interpretation of Southern mythology be correct, it would seem that the myths of the Yuchi and the other southeastern tribes belong in one fairly homogeneous group, and that the fundamental myth elements, here somewhat specialized on account of local interests, also belong in the extensive common category widely distributed over the continent. The cosmogonic idea of the Yuchi, and the other tribes of the Southeast, is purely creational, in contrast to the transformational concept of the … Read more

Yuchi Music

Singing at ceremonies and dances was accompanied by drums and rattles of two kinds. The large drum was made of hide stretched over a log sometimes three feet high and was used to call the townspeople together, and to accompany dancing. This in later times was replaced by a smaller type of drum, the pot-drum, didané (Fig. 32) now used at ceremonies. It was made by stretching a piece of hide over an earthen pot standing about 18 inches high, containing water. An ordinary stick was used with it as a drum stick. The hide covering was decorated usually with … Read more

Yuchi Medicinal Ceremonies

What has so far been said in regard to the treatment of disease deals only with what might properly be called shamanism. Besides the regular practice of curing disease, which is in the hands of especially qualified persons, there are various methods employed by individuals for themselves when attacked by sickness or threatened with it. The town itself celebrates a public ceremony when threatened with evil in the shape of sickness, or when actually suffering from some epidemic. When a man becomes sick and does not desire to employ a shaman to cure him but prefers to treat himself, he … Read more

Yuchi Material Culture

Wood Working. The Yuchi men spend part of their time, when not engaged directly in procuring food, in manufacturing various useful articles out of wood. One form of knife, yanlibo’, ‘knife bent,’ used in whittling such objects, consists of a piece of iron curved at one after the fashion of a farrier’s knife (Fig. 15). The handle part of the metal is bound around with cloth or skin to soften it for the grasp. The wood worker draws the knife towards himself in carving. Thus are made ladles, spoons, and other objects that come in handy about the house. Larger … Read more

Yuchi Language

My original purpose in visiting the Yuchi was to collect linguistic matter, which is now being worked up for special purposes in the interest of the Bureau of Ethnology. Although the detailed results of my linguistic studies are not available for the present paper it will be of advantage to introduce here a general statement regarding some characteristics of the language. It is quite certain now that Yuchi is spoken in only one dialect, although there is a current opinion that formerly the stock was more numerous than it is at present and that the language was spoken in two … Read more

Yuchi Indians Homes

As the native methods of house building have nearly all passed out of use some time ago, we have to depend upon descriptions from memory supplemented by observations made in the ceremonial camp where temporary shelters are made which preserve old methods of construction. The dwelling house of the present-day Yuchi is like that of the ordinary white settler: a structure of squared or round notched logs, with a peak roof of home-made shingles and a door on one side. Windows may be present or not, according to the whim of the owner. The same is true of the fireplace, … Read more

Yuchi Indians Food

In the preparation of food several kinds of wooden utensils are employed. The largest and perhaps the most important piece of household furniture of this sort was the mortar, dilá, and pestle, dicä lá. The mortar (PI. III, Fig. 10, a) which is simply a log several feet high with the bark removed having a cavity about eight inches deep, seems, moreover, to be an important domes-tic fetish. We find that it is connected in some way with the growing up and the future prospects of the children of the family. It occupies a permanent position in the door yard, … Read more

Yuchi Indians Culture

In material culture the Yuchi are typical of the, agricultural hunting tribes of the south east Atlantic and Gulf coast area, living formerly in permanent villages surrounded by cultivated fields and always situated conveniently near some stream where fish abounded. Their houses were grouped about a square plot of ground, which was held as sacred, where religious ceremonies and social gatherings took place. The ordinary houses were of the common coast type, covered with bark or mats, but there was, besides, another more complex and permanent sort with sides plastered with clay. They were good potters, manufacturing various forms by … Read more

Yuchi Hunting

Hunting was pursued by the men either singly or in bands. While the attendance upon the crops kept them at home much of the time, there were seasons of comparative idleness during which parties set off on the hunt. The flesh of nearly all the mammals and birds of their habitat was eaten by the Yuchi with the exception of such as were sacred for ceremonial purposes or were protected by some taboo. The chief game animals hunted by them for their flesh were the deer, weeyan’, bison, wedingá, bear, sagee’, raccoon, djatyAn’, opossimi, WAtsagowAn’, rabbit, cádjwané, squirrel, cayá; while … Read more