Traditions of a Migration

     Almost the only traditions of a migration of peoples from Mexico to the Mississippi valley arc given by the Frenchmen Du Pratz and Milfort.

(3) The first merely states that his native informant indicated the southwest as the region from which his people had come, Du Pratz inferring that he meant. Mexico. A still earlier authority, the missionary Do la Vente, however, quotes the Natchez to the effect that "they came from a very far country, and, according to our reckoning, to the northwest."

(4) Du Pratz's work, was widely read and T can not avoid the conclusion that it influenced Milfort in later times in affirming that the Creek Indians traced their origin to the same quarter: In this particular Milfort, is not followed by any other person who has recorded the migration legends of the Greek Indians.
     Du Pratz's rendering of the Natchez migration legend is too confused to allow us to place much reliance upon it, yet there is one reference: which may contain a true historical reminiscence. This is where his !native informant speaks of stone houses in the country from which his people lead come, some of them "large enough to lodge an entire village."

(5) This strikingly suggests one of the great houses of the Pueblo Indians and may be based upon a knowledge of the existence of the Pueblo people, though there is no reason to think that this knowledge had been handed down from a remote antiquity. This, however, is not the only suggestion of contact between the lower Mississippi and the Pueblos. The Caddoan peoples, who occupied the intervening territory at this point were upon a decidedly higher level than the tribes south of them, as evidenced for instance by he elaborate ceremonialism of the Pawnee. Certain Southeastern ceremonies like that of the new fire and certain customs like that of the matrilocal residence of individuals within the tribe, recall [hose of the Pueblos, artifacts from the Pueblo country are reported sporadically from parts of the Southeast,

(6) and in particular it is known that the Tewa Indians obtained the best wood for their bows from the Osage Orange, most of which was probably obtained in trade from the Kadohadacho on Red River.

(7) These facts and the prevailing migration legends of the area under consideration, nearly all pointing to the west, lead me to believe that contact with the Pueblo country was far more likely than with the civilized peoples of Mexico, and in consideration of the ethnologic condition of southern Texas, I am inclined to regard most Mexican influences as having been introduced via the Pueblos rather than by the more direct route.

III. Contact Through the West Indies

     Communication between regions north of the Gulf and Central or youth America by way of Florida and the West Indies would seem at first more probable. !It would have to be by sea, but the natives of Florida and the West Indies, as well as some of those of Central America, were skilful canoemen, and in early historic times at least, Indians made the passage of the Strait of Florida quite, regularly. On the Suwannee River Bartram met some Seminole who had just returned from a trading voyage to Havana,

(8) and down almost to the middle of last century the descendants of the Calusa Indians of southern Florida looked upon Havana as their .natural market and crossed to that place regularly to tirade.

(9) Indeed, in one of the, earliest Florida documents, the Memoir of Fontaneda, there is a story of the immigration into the peninsula. of a small body of Cuban Indians who afterwards formed a town by themselves.

This site includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes implied .

Southern Contacts of the Indians North of the Gulf of Mexico, 1924

Southern Contacts Free Genealogy | Indian Genealogy | Southern Contacts