Sissipahaw Tribe: Meaning unknown.
Sissipahaw Connections.-The Sissipahaw were probably of the Siouan linguistic family though no words of their language are known.
Sissipahaw Location.-The principal Sissipahaw settlement appears to have been about the present Saxapahaw on Haw River in the lower part of Alamance County. (See also South Carolina.)
Sissipahaw History.-The name of this tribe is possibly preserved in the Sauxpa mentioned by the Spanish officer Vandera in 1569 as a place visited by Juan Pardo. Lawson (1860) spoke of them in connection with his travels through Carolina in 1701, but he did not visit them. Barnwell (1908) identified them with the Shakori with whom they were doubtless nearly allied and of whom they may have been a branch. They united with other tribes of the region against the English in the Yamasee war of 1715, and later with other Siouan remnants probably joined the Catawba.
Sissipahaw Population.-Mooney (1928) estimates the Sissipahaw at 800 in 1600. “Haw Old Fields” constituted the largest body of fertile land in the region.
Connections in which they have become noted. The name Sissipahaw has been brought down to our times by Haw River and the towns of Haw River and Saxapahaw on the same, in Alamance County, N. C.
