The apparent anomaly of a tribe living in two divisions at such a distance from each other is explained when we remember that the intervening territory was occupied by the Cherokee, who were at that time the friends of the Shawnee. The attempt to reconcile conflicting statements without a knowledge of this fact has occasioned much of the confusion in regard to the Shawnee. They were then living in two bodies at a considerable distance apart, and these two divisions were not fully united until nearly a century later, when the tribe settled in Ohio. In this position, as their name may imply, they were the southern advance guard of the Algonquian stock. The tradition of the Delawares, as embodied in the Walum Olum, makes themselves, the Shawnee, and the Nanticoke, originally one people, the separation having taken place after the traditional expulsion of the Talligewi (Cherokee) from the north, it being stated that the Shawnee went south Beyond this it is useless to theorize on the origin of the Shawnee or to strive to assign them any earlier location than that in which they were first known and where their oldest traditions place them the Cumberland basin in Tennessee, with an outlying colony on the middle Savannah in South Carolina. Evelin, who wrote about 1646, gives the names of the different small bands in the south part of New Jersey, while Ruttenber names those in the north, but neither mentions the Shawnee. The name "Savanoos," applied by the early Dutch writers to the Indians living upon the north bank of Delaware river, in New Jersey, did not refer to the Shawnee, and was evidently not a proper tribal designation, but merely the collective term, "southerners," for those tribes southward from Manhattan island, just as Wappanoos, "easterners," was the collective term for those living toward the east. Linguistically the Shawnee belongs to the group of Central Algonquian dialects, and is very closely related to Sank-Fox. None of these theories, however, rests upon sound evidence, and all have been abandoned. Attempts have been made to identify them with the Massawomec of Smith, the Erie of the early Jesuits, and the Andaste of a somewhat later period, while it has also been claimed that they originally formed one tribe with the Sauk and Foxes. By reason of the indefinite character of their name, their wandering habits, their connection with other tribes, and because of their interior position away from the traveled routes of early days, the Shawnee were long a stumbling block in the way of investigators. J.).įormerly a leading tribe of South Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Shawnee (from shawŭn, 'south' shawŭnogi, 'southerners.' W. Shawnee Indian Tribe History(4846 total words in this text)
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