to Mr James Blythe, interpreter during a
great part of the time spent by the author in the field; and to various
Cherokee and other informants mentioned in the body of the work,
from whom the material was obtained.
II HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHEROKEE
The Traditionary Period
The Cherokee were the mountaineers of the South, holding the
entire Allegheny region from the interlocking bead-streams of the
Kanawha and the Tennessee southward almost to the site of Atlanta,
and from the Blue ridge on the east to the Cumberland range on the
west, a territory comprising an area of about 40,000 square miles,
now included in the states of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Their principal towns were upon
the headwaters of the Savannah. Hiwassee, and Tuckasegee, and along
the whole length of the Little Tennessee to itsjunction with the main
stream. Itsati, or Echota, on the south hank of the Little Tennessee, a
few miles above the mouth of Tellico river, in Tennessee, was commonly
considered the capital of the Nation. As the advancing whites pressed
upon them from the east and northeast the more exposed towns were
destroyed or abandoned and new settlements were formed lower down
the Tennessee and on the upper branches of the Chattahoochee and
the Coosa.
As is always (he ease with tribal geography-, there were no fixed
boundaries, and on every side the Cherokee frontiers were contested
by rival claimants. In Virginia, there is reason to believe, the tribe
was held in check in early days by the Powhatan and the Monacan.
On the east and southeast the Tuscarora and Catawba were their invet-
erate enemies, with hardly even a momentary