Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/359

 {283} SECTION III

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHICASAWS AND CHOCTAWS

The Chicasaws and Choctaws, who speak a language considerably related, entertain a tradition in common with the Iroquois, the Delawares, the Illinois, and most of the nations of North America, of having once migrated from the west, and crossed the Mississippi to their present residence. They are said to derive their name from two distinguished leaders, Choctawby and Chicasawby, who instigated their warlike and political movements. These personal appellations were frequently employed by the aborigines in the time of Soto, who speaks, for example, of the Kaskaskias and others by those who then held the rule, as the cazique or chief of Casqui, of Nilco, of Cayas, &c., all which, as far as still recognizable, have passed very improperly into so many epithets apparently national, but which were, in fact, as we discover both by language and confederation, merely so many bands of the same people receding from the residence of the original stock, either through ambitious caprice, enterprize, or necessity. This connection among the Delawares or Lleni-lenapés, affording an easy clue of origin, was always readily acknowledged under the epithets of grandfather, the original stock, and brothers or collateral descendants, by which were designated the receding tribes, and by a mere reference to which, never for a moment disputed, the paternal and ruling authority of the ancient household was universally acknowledged and venerated. From a neglect of this genealogical analysis has arisen that confusion of {284} origin, and those fallacious ideas of Indian nations and languages which many suppose to exist; as if the human family in America, had ever consisted of as many