When James Edward Oglethorpe first met Tomochichi, the leader of the small Yamacraw band of Mvskoke peoples, it was believed that the Mvskoke elder was 91 years of age. This was on February 12 of 1733, which means that Tomochichi would have been 97 or 98 when he died in July of 1739. Many people, including historians, contest this age number thinking it highly unlikely for those times--especially when they have only the biased and not-always-reputable accounts of contemporary European journals to rely on--many of which were, of course, based on hearsay. The accounts do express a fairly universal awe for the Mvskoke mekko's youthful agility and bearing, attributes that were uncommon to Europeans--who were used to an average lifespan of around 35 years, 60 or perhaps 70 if one survived the diseases, malnourishment, and dangers of European pestilence-ridden, famine-prone, and war-torn childhood and youth.
Too little is known of Tomochichi's past to be sure. If he was born 91 years before Oglethorpe met him, that would place him growing up in the fifth decade of the seventeenth century--fully 20 years before England's King Charles II granted the Charter for the Carolinian colonies. This does, however, certify that Tomochichi's birth community would have been fully exposed to European contact (and conflict and plundering), but more, it means that his people would also have already passed through the many waves of exposure to European-borne diseases like small pox, measles, influenza, and typhus--not to mention chicken pox, whooping cough, diphtheria, malaria, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, and bubonic plague. This implies that Tomochichi would surely have benefitted from a communal immune system that would have long ago adapted to the life-shortening diseases that had decimated American indigen populations since "First Contact" in 1492: which works in favor of the possibility that Tomochichi could have lived a long life. (It is believed by many scientists that 90% of America's indigen human populations were destroyed by the spread of communicable diseases that were [at first, unwittingly] brought by the Europeans.)
Tomochichi's birth place. It was recorded that Tomochichi was born, or at least, resided for a time, in the Lower Mvskoke town of Apalachicola. Apalachicola was a movable settlement of indigen peoples that is usually associated with the 106-mile long Apalachicola River whose mouth empties out in what is now the Florida Panhandle but whose south-flowing path begins at a man-made lake (Lake Seminole) in the southwest corner of Georgia. At one time, Apalachicola served as a central trading and cultural center for the larger community of Native Americans in the Southeast. The river also serves, via Lake Seminole, as the continuation of a confluence of several prominent Georgia rivers, including the south-flowing Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers, the former of which now serves as the border between the states of Alabama and Georgia.
Apalachicola and Palachicola. It is a question of historicity that causes me to posit the possibility that the use of the term "Apalachicola" might have been confused with the name "Palachicola" (which can be seen in historical documents as spelled as "Pallachocolas," "Palachucola," "Palachocolas," "Palachacola," "Palachuckaly," "Parachucla," or "Parachuchio"; remember that this was a time in which spelling in the English language had not been standardized and was, thus, at the creative whim or autodidactic rules of the individual scrivener). Palachicola had been used as the Indian name of a Yamasee settlement in southeastern Georgia on what is now called the Savannah River, a settlement that happens to be on the approximate location of "Yamacraw Bluff": the community in which Tomochichi was living before he met Oglethorpe. As you can see, the spelling of the name "Palachicola" is very close to that of "Apalachicola"; the two locations being nearly 300 miles apart. Though a distance like this is by no means far for a Native American to travel in 1700, the possibility that Tomochichi's energies in his twilight years would be directed toward his "home town" where his "ancestors are buried" is high. The fact that he spent those "twilight" years focused on the coastal areas around Savannah, not the coastal and river grounds along the Apalachicola River in the Florida Panhandle, is, to me, not insignificant. So perhaps his allegiance was being directed at his birth place (the home of his ancestors) which might very well have been Palachicola, not Apalachicola.
It sounds as if it was perceived that the site of "Palachicola" may have become abandoned after the Yamasee "War." Like Moses and his wandering Jews, Tomochichi might have been part of one of the many groups of wandering Yamasee, Guale, (Eu-)U-chee, Hitchiti, and other tribeless orphans and misfits who might have survived or been displaced by the "Yamasee" rebellions. At some time in their "diaspora," various fragmented bands, clans, or families might have come up with the idea to join forces, to create a new band--what they could have, apparently, called the "Yamacraw." As an elder, Tomochichi may have been looked to for leadership in this venture.
I propose that, perhaps, in this band's initial excitement at the promise of a possible future--with the resuscitation of hope--they may have come up with a vision--a "calling"--of protecting, maybe even reviving, the dreams and traditions of their ancestors, thus choosing the ancient location of their ancestors' burial grounds: the ones at the former site(s) of Palachicola--which they supposedly renamed "Yamacraw Bluff." (There is a strong likelihood that this name might have been generated by the British and other European ethnographers who recorded the events and history of the times as they might have been using words of their own choosing--words that made sense to their own reference systems.)
Based on the recorded accounts of Tomochichi's "warm and brotherly" reception to the arrival of the 36-year old Parliamentary MP and former adjutant to Prince Eugene of Savoy during the heroic Austrian-led military campaign against the Ottoman Turks, and then his generous and fairly submissive agreement to the assistance and facilitation of Oglethorpe's de facto invasion and usurpation of Yamacraw Bluff, one might deduce that he and his Yamacraw band had already poised themselves to the inevitability of such an infiltration and occupation. Perhaps they had even convinced themselves, even as true descendants of these proud but beaten-down peoples, of the wisdom and possibilities that could come with integration and assimilation: that something positive and life-giving could come out of a friendly cooperation and submission to the will and insidious encroachment of the White Cloud Walkers and their strange, even abhorrent ways.
Manifest destiny. Recalling their own creation stories, one must point out that most of the Natives of the Southeast used to identify themselves as the People of the Dawn (a term which itself contains no little suggestion of John L. O'Sullivan's later term, "manifest destiny"). According to their creation stories, the People of the Dawn moved east as some kind of punishment and/or penance from some terrible sin they'd committed against the gods while living in the Eden of the mountains to the west--a place that is almost always noted as their place of origin. They moved East, settling for a time near the shores of the great Mississippi and Ohio rivers, but even there their hubris forced them to move, to continue their migration to the east, until they reached the sea--the place where the Dawn happens. If the easternmost shores of their great "Turtle Island" was their final calling place, what must they have thought was the meaning behind the appearance of the crude, greedy, and most dishonest little humans that "flew in" (on clouds) from the East?
Oral traditions of several specific tribes recount the fact that when the first Indians saw the sails of the Europeans' incoming sailing ships, they mistook them for clouds. When strange little humans emerged from the "cloud vehicles" to interact with the Peoples of the Dawn on the ocean shores, the natives often assumed that these filthy little creatures must be gods--or at least representatives of the gods. Perhaps, by the time the 18th Century rolled around, Tomochichi and some of his kind had come to the conclusion that the insidious flood of what seemed like an endless supply of these grotesque alien "gods" meant that it was the end of the time of the People of the Dawn--that the tide of foreigners (coupled with repeated defeats and losses in battle, war, and council/talks, not to mention the long list of plagues that arrived coincidentally about the same time as the first White Cloud visitors) might signal the end of their own use (and domination) of Turtle Island's land and waters. As is human nature, however, the ego of many could not let supplication come easily; they would not go down without a fight. Perhaps by 1733 some of the wisest of the Native American peoples had come to the resignation that integration might be an acceptible if not better option than annihilation; thus, Tomochichi's open-arms, bend-over-backwards embracement of all of Oglethorpe's plans and requests--even motivation for his acquiescence to a trip to England (which occurred in June of 1734): to see for his own what kind of world was swallowing and supplanting his own.
Tomochichi the Warrior. It has also been thrown around that, like most adult males of the Southeastern indigen tribes, Tomochichi is likely to have had several "careers" within the Southeast--including that of warrior, for example, in the recent Yamasee "War." It is certain due to cultural pervasion that Tomochichi knew the ways of war and possessed the skills and physical attributes (including scars and tattoos) to attest to having participated in war. Warrior status, however, was one of choice. It was quite natural for emerging youth, especially of the male gender, to train hardily in the arts and skills of hunting and war: one naturally wants to emulate and aspire to the glory given to feats of strength, skill, and legendary status, but a warring life was neither expected or required in typical Mvskoke society. The existence in Mvskoke culture of both "White Towns" and "Red Towns," representative of towns established with a decided consensus-based disposition toward peace or war, respectively, is well documented throughout early contact encounters and ethnographic accounts. It is possible, despite Tomochichi's remarkable physique, that he had chosen activities in the non-warrior vocations--even as hunter, trader, or inter-town message runner. Would that we knew what "clan" Tomochichi was born into, we would also have some valuable information as to his inclinations and pressures as specific clans tended to pride themselves in certain and specific specialities.
The Yamasee War. The Yamasee "War" was, in fact, an Indian revolt that started in 1715. It was led by the Yamasee band of Mvskoke but was sanctioned and encouraged by the participation and backing of many other bands of Southeast Natives--many of whom were of Mvskoke ancestry--including warriors of the the Ochese, Tallapoosa, Abeika, and Alabama tribes (all Creek or Mvskoke peoples), the Apalachee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Catawba, Cherokee, Shawnee, Eu/U-chee (Yushee), and others. The intention of this rebellion was, clear and resolutely, to annihilate the White Peoples of the Carolina colony--specifically the Charles Town-governed southern colony (the colony did not formally split until 1729).
The frustration of years of broken treaties, belittling trade inequalities, coupled with increasing financial and debt-forgiveness enticements to hunt and turn in other Natives for human trafficking and enslavement purposes as a means to settle enormous debts that the British financial system had imposed upon the ignorant and uncomprehending local populations, brought a large enough number of Natives to a breaking point. Many of the perspectives of contemporary historical accounts acknowledge that the pervasive mindset of the Natives was that this rebellion might serve as a kind of "last stand"--a last chance, if you will--for the defence, protection, and preservation--even survival--of their own way of life (on their own ancestral lands).
In April of 1715, the clandestine and unforewarned surprise attacks on smaller, more rural South Carolinian settlements and farms began in the southern areas of the Colony. The Native warriors were ruthless and fairly systematic in their guerilla tactics of slaughter and destruction. In the North, Ochese warriors destroyed all of the rural trading posts, massacring all peoples present. The scare stirred up throughout the Colony caused many families and traders to flee to Charles Town for safety. At the same time, despite use against the Spanish in Florida in Queen Anne's War during the first decade of the 18th Century, this was the first major test of South Carolina's militia.
The British defense and retaliation was fairly swift and relentless, tracking down bands of warriors through swamps and down rivers, to makeshift forts and, eventually, Native strongholds ("towns"), forcing retreat after retreat, slowly decimating the Mvskoke warrior population. However, another tactic was being deployed at the same time: that of trade incentives: new promises of better relations, better contracts, with floods of gifts being used to try to win back positive relations with the local tribes. A fairly constant stream of delegations were sent to many Native communities throughout the area offering better trade terms and more sympathetic treatment of individuals and groups within the individual Lower Creek towns. This latter tactic proved the most destabilizing to the Creek efforts to organize and keep the momentum of rebellion going.
While the outcomes face-to-face battles always went in favor of the South Carolina militia, they proved highly unsuccessful at protecting South Carolinians from Indian raiding tactics--which, of course, had always been, for hundreds of years, the preferred warring tactic of Indian war parties. Thus, along with migrations to Charles Town and other European safeholds on or near the Atlantic Coast, many Carolinian settlers chose to return to Europe.
The decisive role of the Cherokee. It is estimated that seven per cent of South Carolina's population were killed in the rebellion, making this one of the most significant. Though the Yamasee Creek band bears the name of the revolt and "war," there were many other Native towns and leaders who expressed as vociferous a cry for war and retribution--including many eastern Cherokee. After several meetings in the summer and fall of 1715 and failed attempts to gain the support of a confederation of Cherokee towns and bands, it took the hyperactive voice and town-to-town campaigning of one particularly-anti-Creek leader--a Middle Cherokee town leader by the name of "Caesar"--to finally convince the Cherokee to unite with the Charles Town militia against the Creek tribes. In a last ditch effort for peace, the Charles Town leaders were able to convince a delegation of Creek leaders to meet for peace negotiations in Tugaloo (which happened to be a town of the Lower Cherokee peoples). When the British finally arrived on January 27, 2016, they found that a number of members of the Creek delegation had been murdered when talks between they and the Cherokee delegation became heated. Remember, the Cherokee and Creek nations had already built up a seething amount of tension and growing animosity toward one another as the former group, themselves refugees from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in the north--and, in particular, from the aggressions of the Iroquois peoples--most likely had had an eye on the lowland and coastal fish and game supply monopolized by the coastal Native tribes. It is also considered quite likely that the Cherokee were hoping to gain greater access to the lucrative trade relations with the European colonists--which were again fairly dominated by the coastal and lowland/woodland tribes like the Creek. Partnership in a war that might not only defeat and deplete their own rivals might serve to both drive the coastal Natives away from the coasts--even back into the uplands and southern mountains--but cause trade deficits for the White Peoples, opening the door for the establishment and growth of their own trade relations.
Resolution (?). Though the "end" of the "war" was never really resolved with one date or one treaty, it was diminished by the Cherokee alliance. Some Native towns signed treaties, many trade relationships were re-established, while many small bands of angered natives remained armed, continued occasional raids on White establishments, or moved south and west. Another new tactic that seemed to arise from the many negotiations that occurred during the experience was the wise and intentional recognition and "placement" of half-breed puppets into political leadership ("chief") positions as well as given contracts to establish government-sanctioned and (supposedly) military-protected trading posts.
One group of Mvskoke stragglers ended up gaining such privileged status on the banks of the now-Savannah River, in Irene, nearly directly across the river from a British fort, Fort Prince George. In 1732 the Irene trading post was issued to the wily and colorful Mary Musgrove.
Mary Musgrove. Daughter of Charles Town trader, Edward Griffin, through a high-born (yes, the Native populations recognized exceptionality and bloodline hierarchy) native Creek woman, Mary was born into the Wind Clan around 1700 and raised initially in her mother's home town of Coweta on the Ockmulgee River. At age seven, "Coosaponakeesa" was taken by her father to Pon Pon, in the Carolina colony. There she was baptized and educated in the British fashion (and language). With the outbreak of the Yamasee rebellion in 1715, Mary was moved back to her mother's family's home in Coweta. After the War, British delegates were sent to Coweta to negotiate peace with the Creek. The leader of this peace party was prominent Carolinian soldier, planter, and trader, Colonel John Musgrove. As part of the peace accord, Mary, herself a member of the Coweta "royalty," was betrothed to the son of the British emissary, John Musgrove, Jr., who, like Mary, was of mixed blood having a Creek mother. Though following traditional Creek rules of matrilineal residency, John and Mary left Coweta after a time to take up residence in Pon Pon.
In 1732, the governor of Carolina and the new band of Yamasee and Creek outcasts who were calling themselves the Yamacraw peoples asked John and Mary if they would start a trading post near the Isundiga River (the name the Savannah River was called before the arrival of Oglethorpe with his Georgia Colony Charter). Using her knowledge of indigen ways, Mary chose the spot in Irene, at the ferry crossing below Fort Prince George, along the ancient Indian trading path, for the placement of her trading post--which she called "Cowpen." With her excellent command of both Mvskoke and other regional Indigen dialects and English (and high-born native ancestry), Mary's natural abilities as go-between in inter-language negotiations quickly elevated her to almost revered status among both the Native and European populations. It was she that proved most crucial to negotiations between Colonel Oglethorpe and mekko Tomochichi as well as many, many other Euro-Indian negotiations. it was Mary's husband, John, however, that accompanied Colonel Oglethorpe to England as the official translator for the Lower Creek delegation in the summer of 1734.
Ethnogenesis and the Yamacraw. "Yamacraw" is literally a hybridization of the words "Yamasee" and "Creek." When Tomochichi met Oglethorpe it was atop Yamacraw Bluff, an escarpment of higher ground above the bay, estuary, and river that now bear the Savannah name. The Yamacraw band of Lower Creek Indians had apparently only recently settled upon the bluff. This was not long after the defeat of the Indian confederacy that was lead by, and bears the name of, the people identifying themselves as Yamasee members. The settlement site had been chosen, according to Tomochichi and other band members, due to its location near ancestral burial grounds of some of the members of the newly-created Yamacraw band. (The city of Savannah is built over six known ancient native American burial sites including two "burial mounds" including the famously-fully-excavated mounds in Irene, which are located five miles northwest of the city center of Oglethorpe's twelve district city plan. Irene, Yamacraw Bluff, and Savannah mark a prominent location populated by ancestors of the Mvskoke, members of whom occupied the area and coastal Georgia from about 1100 C.E. to 1600 C.E.)
Ethnogenesis is the process of the creation of a new culture, complete with new name and often in a new location. It is a process that can come from within a newly-relocated community or one that is recognized by and from external observers. It happened all the time with Native American populations and still does to this day. It is also a phenomenon that occurs constantly throughout history due to constant population movements and is often applied by scientists like historians, anthropologists, archeologist, and ethnobiologists using names and terms based on a wide range of criteria and sometimes very-personal decision-making. Ethnogenesis is what makes identification of Indian "tribes" so challenging because both old communities and newly-banded groups of Indians were prone to change their appellation --even using made up monikers as means of deception to outsiders or falling prey to sticking appellations that were given to them by other competing groups--which were often quite derrogatory. For example, "Apache" is a Spanish term borrowed from either the Zuni word of similar pronunciation which was meant as a name for the "Navajo" or from the Yavapi word that means "enemy." Many Apache tribes prefer to call themselves "Inde" while many Navajo peoples use the term "Dine" to designate themselves. "Comanche" is a name given the Numunuu peoples by their enemies, the Utes, meaning "other," "stranger," or "enemy," as passed on by the Spanish. The "Clovis Culture" is a name created by archeologists in the 1920s to describe the Native peoples of the North American Southwest around 13,000 years ago that denotes the American city in New Mexico that was closest to the first archeological findings. The "Anasazi" were a cliff- and pueblo-dwelling people in the American Southwest that we now to have been ancestors of the Pueblo Indian tribes. The name "Anasazi" comes from a Navajo word meaning "ancient enemies." We don't know what those people called themselves, just as we do not know what the tribes of the Cahokian, or Mississippian, culture called themselves.
Author's note: Might the disappearance of coastal inhabitants in the second and third decades of the 18th Century have anything to do with A) First Contact with European explorers and the successive waves of disease epidemics that ensued and/or B) fear of further contact with the White Cloud Gods, and/or C) changing migratory habits of game and fish, or D) changes in weather patterns making coastal living less conduicive to supporting the native's dietary and entertainment habits (and needs), or E) the results, ramifications, and terms(?) of the Yamasee War?
What's in a name. The river that we refer to as the Savannah River was going by the name Palachacola after the Yamasee Rebellion and sported a British fort (Fort Prince George) and ferry service on the Carolina side from 1717 to 1743, following the course of an old, pre-existing Indian trading route. From 1704 to 1715, the Yamasee town of Palachacola existed on the bluff above the other, more southern side of the river. Before that it had been known by names such as Westobou and Isundiga. Further up river, near the present day location of Augusta, rested a settlement of refugee Shawnee Indians (who had been displaced by the increasing aggression and demands of the Iroquois/Haudenosaunnee Confederacy). These Shawnee also called themselves the "Savanna." Many people began taking to calling the Shawnee town Savanna(h) and the river that flowed down from it (which was significant to trade due to its year-round navigability) the "Savanna(h) River."
If there is one consistent thing in Native American history it is that names change as frequently as people change locations. A much misunderstood and often overlooked fact of Native American life was the fact that the names of individuals also changed. A lot. Sometimes of their own doing, sometimes of their family and peers doing, equally as often as foreign outsiders were to encounter and try to interpret their names, and of course, when newcomers arrived and tried to impose their own names from their own languages to the landmarks.
It was quite normal for an individual Mvskoke to use and be recognized by several names over the course of its lifetime. In childhood, an identifying name was usually given by the family, clan, or village/band. At the time of a child's passage into adulthood, the individual was given the opportunity to "choose" one's own name. It is also known that Native American individuals "found" or "recovered" very private names that were never divulged to others--that were considered "sacred" and thought a way to hold and retain their own power and identity. Also, it was not uncommon for individuals to take up new names (and identities) with travel, changes in occupation, shifting stages of life, as well as relocations. Also, names might be assigned to an individual by his/her community according to significant, defining acts or feats of bravery, strength, inanity, or even comedy. These last kind of appellations might be earned and honorable or created out of derision--or both.
This leads me to the memory of one particular account of the meetings between Oglethorpe and Creek Nation representatives. In this meeting the European chronicler swears that the "chiefs" in the Indian delegation were referring to Tomochichi by the name "Dogface." Could Tomochichi, in a previous segment of his life, have been called "Dogface"? Would/could this have been a name of his own choosing, a name chosen and used by those who would chide him, or even a name that Tomochichi had worn with pride? We may never know.
It is known that in meetings between Creek/Muscogee leaders, elders, half-breeds, translators, and Oglethorpe, the other Native American emissaries present often expressed surprise and a certain condescending derision in their tone toward the presence, trust, and voice of Tomochichi: as if he were an outsider or a mercenary who might "sell" his loyalty and services to any simpatico, or a butt of jokes among the other Mvskoke bands. I like to assume their arrogance stemmed from jealousies and macho competitiveness. A male given his life to war and male ways often looks down upon those of differing priorities--especially one who has lived a long life due to adherence to principles of the White Stick. This opinion, of course, precludes the supposition that Tomochichi had learned to devalue or negate warring tendencies and had chosen a more conciliatory, even submissive (or pandering?) affect toward the usurpation of Turtle Island by the "foreign barbarians."
This brings up the subject of how--or even whether or not--Tomochichi might have stepped into a leadership role with the band of natives calling themselves the Yamacraw. That the Yamacraw were composed of survivors of the Yamasee War is of little doubt. Whether or not they were participants in the raiding and aggression is dubious. Not every Southeast Indian was war-mongering; there were almost as many towns and bands and leaders who were opposed to war, actually wanted to retain trading relations with the Colonies. After the dissipation of the aggressive elements of the southern bands of rebels (the Yamasee, Yuchi, Coweta, Apalachicola, Choctaw, and Chickasaw), there remained those who wished to regain peaceful relations with the British. It seems quite obvious that Tomochichi and his "Yamacraw" were one such group. This assumption stands in alignment with Tomochichi's celebrated open arms embracement and support of Oglethorpe and his cast of settlers.
Since English and other European colonists and settlers possessed such a disapproving and mistrustful perspective of the Indians and their customs and motives--and since it is always natural for historians to project their own values and systems on the unknown and misunderstood ones of their foreign-language-speaking "hosts" and "collaborators"--the history and ways of the indigenous peoples they encountered have been, to a great degree, distorted and misinterpreted through the lens of cultural bias.
Why Yamacraw Bluff? The fact of the Yamacraw's inhabitation of the Savannah area alone should be a demonstration of this band of natives' intentions: While everyone else from the formerly-coast-living indigenous tribes had moved progressively inland due to distrust and fear of the encroaching, vengeful, and greedy (mostly-)British colonists, Tomochichi and his little band had chosen to remain near the coast. By 1732, this was almost unheard of. This choice alone must surely validate several significant values attributed to (and/or claimed by) the Yamacraw. First, that they were drawn to be near--to "protect" and draw power and inspiration from--their ancestral burial grounds. Second, the value to these people that the foods (game and fish) and medicinals that the coastal regions offered them. A third motive might have been attributed to fear of the other more-traditionally-motivated bands or towns of aggressor-type--the "Red Towns"--as well as a desire to live peacefully, almost innocently in trust with European contact--whatever may come.
It is known that their little town had a trading post on its fringes: Mary Musgrove's--the one that Tomochichi and Oglethorpe agreed would support a school for the teaching of native youth of the Christian Bible and the English language--both of which surely indicate Tomochichi's wise recognition that the future way for survival of his peoples would be through accommodation and assimilation: through letting the English/European ways absorb his peoples, convincing his peoples that the way to survival and "peace" would be through succumbing to the will and wishes of their conquerors.
A Mvskoke perspective. Based upon more-recently-received information about Mvskoke values and Mvskoke life patterns (due to the fairly-recent allowances and accommodations being made in the academic circles of history and anthropology for the admissions of Native American source materials--most of which is derived from oral "histories" and oral tradition), it is likely that Tomochichi moved around over the course of his lifetime. It was quite typical, even expected, that the males would spend their childhoods in a village or "town," working on small tasks dictated by the women and elders of the village according to seasonal and customary traditions as well as manpower needs. At the same time, the children had lots of free time in which they would play at games that emulated the activities they observed as well as stories and big events that they saw but were considered too young to participate in. At the end of childhood, before the passage and rites of manhood, a young boy might be allowed to hunt or practice hunting skills. It must also be understood that an individual's matralineal "clan" played an important role in both the boy's location and upbringing, as well as in the potential outcomes for that boy's specialities and skill sets as each clan evolved with its own set of special stories, skills and traditions that might be different from another clan's. Also, one's clan might turn out to be a stronger source of self- and group-identification than that of a band, town, or "tribe"--especially as clan relations permeate the entire race of American aboriginals and do not change or dissolve while the markers and monikers of band, town, or "tribal" identification changed all the time. (Witness the fact that many bands who had the Mvskoke language in common would change their name with each move, each population debacle [like absorption from war into enslavement, devastating epidemic, famine or food shortage] where they might be forced to join another band or town due to lack of appropriate numbers possessing the necessary skill sets to exist with any degree of autonomy and self-sufficiency]. Groups or bands of like-minded natives were always breaking off to form new societies--like the Seminoles, who were originally part of the Mvskoke or Lower Creeks but who wanted a more traditional, less-European-influenced existence than that which was being demanded and forced upon the Mvskoke who chose to try to live with, near, or in trade relations with the European colonists and settlers, or the Guale, a tribe with their own language that pre-dated the European invasion and, it is theorized, was decimated by the first waves of European-born diseases as well as conflict with both Mvskoke tribes and the near-by Spanish. There was talk, from historical writings, of the Guale being absorbed by the Mvskoke--who themselves came from the West: from the Mississippian cultures made famous from Cahokian archeology (or, as some archeological evidence would indicate--and legend and oral tradition would support, come from the Caribbean-crossing Arawak tribes, a vast and ancient culture who, it can be shown, originated on the southern continent that we now call "South America)."
Association by language. The Sioux, Algonquian, Uto-Aztecan, Athabaskan, and Iroquoian peoples are examples of root languages of collected tribes who emerged from a common culture and who were able to retain the use of and familiarity with a base language. The Sioux peoples spoke either Dakota and Lakota languages and their offshoots but could understand one another and thus are lumped together as one group. The peoples common to the Algonquian language dispersed and evolved into the Ottawa, Potawatomi, Cree, Ojibwa (Anishinaabe), Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Mi'kmaq (Micmac), Arapaho, and Fox-Sauk-Kickapoo tribes. The Dene languages that originated with the Athabaskan peoples are still spoken by many bands and tribes in the Pacific Northwest (including Western Canada and Alaska) as well as the Apache and Navajo nations. The Mesoamerican peoples of the Uto-Aztecan lineage included the Aztec Indians and used derivatives of the Náhuatl languages that are still spoken throughout Mexico. The Iroquioan languages of the American Northeast (New England, Appalachia, Ontario) were spoken by tribes that we know as the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, and Cherokee, and many more. The language(s) most familiar to Tomochichi would have been of the Muscogean class: a group that was spoken in dialects among the Alabama, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (or Creek), Koasati, Apalachee, and Hitchiti-Mikasuki tribes. And these are just the tribes and languages that we know of.
There are known to have been many languages and pre-iterations of languages--as well as hundreds of pre-Columbian tribes--for which we have archeological evidence but little or no anthropological accounting. Each tribe's oral history goes back to ancestral grounds far preceding those tribes we Europeans encountered or even heard about much less have found evidence of. Since no population of indigenous peoples in what we now call North America can admit to having originated from, much less occupied, one certain land area, it can easily be asserted that the indigen populations of the pre-Columbian Americas were all highly mobile, even to be considered nomadic despite circuitous migratory patterns they may have established for seasonal and changing game location reasons. The Mvskoke speaking tribes that Europeans encountered in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and even Eighteenth centuries had become more stationary, more localized, settling into patterns of riverside habitation--which they called the equivalent of our own word "towns"--and to which most individuals might admit to some kind of association or attachment--some of which amounted to up to one or two thousand people. But these, too, could only be temporary due to the recurrent cycle of issues that come with "over-staying ones welcome" in terms of depletion of local supplies of preferred vegetation and fauna as well as deteriorating conditions of sanitation and hygiene.
Town impermanence. Though the Creek tribes that the Spanish, French, and British encountered in the 1700s used agricultural techniques like farming (corn, beans, squashes and gourds) and animal some husbandry, they had not been so successful at dealing with mounting issues like depletion of soil nutrients, accumulating human refuse, deforestation and "overpicking," as well changing migratory (and supply) patterns of preferred game populations (despite the age-old use of annual end-of-winter controlled burns of forest and fields). Thus, it is known that the Lower Creek towns tended to move every few years: sometimes as little as a few miles down the same stream, sometimes greater distances, always tearing down (and destroying) while taking with them essentials.
The Busk. The near-universal tradition of the annual Summer Harvest festival (the green corn "Busk") reinforced a pattern of cleansing, purification, and renewal. During the Busk communities would take three days to perform a variety of time-honored exercises. One was the ritual burning of all old clothes and food stores and building materials. The adult population (and non-pregnant women) would also participate in all-day, all-night sacramental purging and dance rituals using the highly-caffeinated yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria), their "black drink," as their purgative.
The three-day dance and purgative experience was thought to not only cleanse the body but the mind and spirit as well: leading (by the symbolic extension) to the full forgiveness and absolution of all debts, crimes, and "wrongs" for each and every individual of the town, band, and/or clan.) The annual Busk was also significant for the way that it freed individuals for new opportunities: new jobs, new relationships, new moves (to other towns), even new names (though rites of passage like adulthood and marriage would occur at other auspicious times throughout the year: they were usually dictated by events like dreams and/or messages divined from the stars or from Mother Nature).
My own gut feelings about Tomochichi--which are based upon over a decade of reading and researching, and hours of ruminating on him--include: 1) that he would not have fought in the Yamasee rebellion; 2) that he may have been a warrior as a youth but that he had long ago left those ways; 3) that he was probably leading renegade war-averse natives and half-breeds who did not see violence, conflict, and war as a viable much less sane tactic before, during, and after the Yamasee rebellion. This is probably why some of the white observers who chronicled Oglethorpe and others' interactions with Indian "chiefs" (another concept that was foreign to but forced upon the native peoples for the sake that White's used and needed representatives and ambassadors to talk treaties with the peoples they were seeking "permissions," "annexations," and "contracts" with) caught the undercurrent (or, in some cases, overt displays) of disrespect and derision directed toward Tomochichi.
How could a true member of the People of the Dawn--a man of full Mvskoke blood and, therefore, a warrior--invoke such unmanly and disrespectful attitudes of peace and conciliation, even accommodation and assimilation, when one's own blood kin are being forced out of their ancestral lands, being lied to and manipulated, over and over, even being slaughtered as if to be wiped from the surface of the world?
Still, once one "sees the writing on the wall," one has to choose between fight, flight, and/or acquiescence and compromise. Perhaps Tomochichi, a man out of his time, had learned to see--and honor--the value of life, the value of "other" ways (foreign to one's own), the value of (or completion of his peoples' "penance" through) the integration--out of necessity--of the People of the Dawn with the mysterious and utterly illogical Cloud People of the East.
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