Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney

of the Shawano from Tennessee is Haywood (Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, pp. 222-224). The Schoolcraft reference is from Notes on the Iroquois, p. 160, and the notice of the Cherokee-Delaware war from Loskiel, Mission of United Brethren, p. 128, and Heckewelder, Indian Nations, p. 88. The Tunâ'i story is from Wafford; the other incidents from Swimmer. Shawano--The Shawano or Shawnee were one of the most important of the Algonquian tribes. Their most noted chief was the great Tecumtha. The meaning of the name is doubtful. It is commonly interpreted "Southerners," from the Algonquian shawan, "the south," but may have come from another Algonquian word signifying "salt" (siutagan, sewetagan, etc., from sewan, "sweet, pungent"). Unlike the southern Indians generally, the Shawano were great salt users, and carried on an extensive salt manufacture by boiling at the salt springs of southwestern Virginia, furnishing the product in trade to other tribes. They have thirteen clans--Wolf, Loon, Bear, Buzzard, Panther, Owl, Turkey, Deer, Raccoon, Turtle, Snake, Horse, and Rabbit (Morgan), the clan of the individual being indicated by his name. They are organized also into four divisions or bands, perhaps originally independent allied tribes, viz, Piqua, Mequachake, Kiscopocoke, and Chilicothe. To the second of these belonged the hereditary priesthood, but the first was most prominent and apparently most numerous. The Shawano were of very wandering and warlike habit. Their earliest historical habitat appears to have been on the middle Savannah river, which takes its name from them, but before the end of the seventeenth century we find a portion of them, apparently the main body, occupying the basin of the Cumberland river in Tennessee and the adjacent region of Kentucky. About the year 1692 most of those remaining in South Carolina moved northward and settled upon the upper Delaware river, with their relatives and friends the Delaware and Mahican. These emigrants appear to have been of the Piqua division. Up to about the year 1730 the Shawano still had a town on Savannah river, near Augusta, from which they were finally driven by the Cherokee. From their former intimate association with the Uchee, living in the same neighborhood, some early writers have incorrectly supposed the two tribes to be the same. A part of the Shawano joined the Creek confederary, and up to the beginning of the last century, and probably until the final removal to the West, occupied a separate town and retained their distinct language. Those settled upon the Cumberland were afterward expelled by the Cherokee and Chickasaw, and retired to the upper waters of the Ohio under protection of the Delaware, who had given refuge to the original emigrants from South Carolina. With the advance of the white settlements the two tribes moved westward into Ohio, the Shawano fixing themselves in the vicinity of the present Piqua and Chillicothe about the year 1750. They took a leading part in the French and Indian war, Pontiac's war, the Revolution, and the war of 1812. In 1793 a considerable band settled in Missouri upon lands granted by the Spanish government. As a result of successive sales and removals all that remain of the tribe are now established in Indian Territory, about one-half being incorporated with the Cherokee Nation. In 1900 they numbered about 1,580, viz, in Cherokee Nation (in 1898), 790; Absentee Shawnee of Sac and Fox Agency, 509; Absentee Shawnee of Big Jim's band, special agency, 184; Eastern Shawnee of Quapaw Agency,