mooney] THE EXD OF THE NATCHEZ 521
Creeks in 1 791, speaks of the " Natchez villages " (plural) and says that " the Natchez, or Sunset Indians, from the Mississippi, joined the Creeks about fifty years since, after being driven out from Louisiana, and added considerably to their confederative body." At this time their chief, the Dog Warrior, was one of the most influential chiefs of the Creek confederacy. 1 Their town, Nauchee or Natchee, was on Natchee, now Tallahatchee creek, an affluent of Coosa river, about fifteen miles southwest of the present Talladega, in Talladega county, Alabama. Others were living in the neighboring Creek town of Abicoochee. 8 Being a warlike people they probably suffered their full share of loss in the Creek war of 1813-14, and when the Creeks finally sold their last remaining lands in Alabama in 1832 and removed to their present territory west of the Mississippi, the Natchez went with them, and the few survivors are now there, excepting such as have joined the Cherokee to the northward. From one of their principal men, John Lasley, of Abika, ten miles from Eufaula station in the Creek Nation, Gatschet obtained a valuable vocabu- lary of the old language in 1885. Under the laws of the Creek nation Lasley represented his tribe in the Creek " house of war- riors,'* although practically without a constituency. He was still alive at an advanced age, together with several other relatives, all speaking their own language, when the writer visited Eufaula
five years later.
Synonyms
NA'ts! — Nache, Nachee, Nach6s, Nahchee, Naktche, Natchee, Natchez (old French plural), Nauchee, Notchees, Ani-Na'tsI, AnintsI, Pine Indians, Sunset Indians. The Indian word is of doubtful origin and etymology.
YA'zu — Yasoux, Yassaues, Yassu, Yazoo.
KOROA — Coloa, Coroa, Corrois, Couroa, Kouroua, Kdlwa, Kulua.
TlOU — Th6loel (?), Thioux, Thysia, Thoucoue (?), Tihiou.
1 Swan (1791) in Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes •, 1855, v » PP- 260-263.
- Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend^ 1884, pp. 125, 138.
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