A Migration Legend of the Creek
Indians

The present publication proposes to bring before the public, in popular form, some scientific results obtained while studying the language and ethnology of the Creek tribe and its ethnic congeners. The method of furthering ethnographic study by all the means which the study of language can afford, has been too little appreciated up to the present time, but has been constantly kept in view in this publication. Language is not only the most general and important help to ethnology, but outside of race, it is also the most ancient of all; ethnologists are well aware of this fact, but do not generally apply it to their studies, because they find it too tedious to acquire the language of unlettered tribes by staying long enough among them.
The help afforded to linguistic studies by the books published in and upon the Indian languages is valuable only for a few among the great number of the dialects. The majority of them are laid down in phonetically defective missionary alphabets, about which we are prompted to repeat what the citizens of the young colony of Mexico wrote to the government of Spain, in Cortez's time: "Send to us pious and Christian men, as preachers, bishops and missionaries, but do not send us scholars, who, with their pettifogging distinctions and love of contention, create nothing but disorder and strife."l In the same manner, some Creek scholars and churchmen agreed five times in succession, before 1853, upon standard alphabets to be followed in transcribing Creek, but, as Judge G. W. Stidham justly remarks, made it worse each time. To arrive at trustworthy results, it is therefore necessary to investigate the forms of speech as they are in use among the Indians themselves.
Very few statements of the Kasihta migration legend can be made available for history. It is wholly legendary, in its first portion even mythical; it is of a comparatively remote age, exceedingly instructive for ethnography and for the development of religious ideas; it is full of that sort of naïveté which we like so much to meet in the mental productions of our aborigines, and affords striking instances of the debasing and brutalizing influence of the unrestricted belief in the supernatural and miraculous. Of the sun-worship, which underlies the religions of all the tribes in the Gulf territories, only slight intimations are contained in the Kasi’hta legend, and the important problem, whether the Creeks ever crossed the Mississippi river from west to east in their migrations, seems to be settled by it in the negative, although other legends may be adduced as speaking in its favor.
Owing to deficient information on several Maskoki dialects, I have not touched the problem of their comparative age. From the few indications on hand, I am inclined to think that Alibamu and Koassáti possess more and Cha’hta less archaic forms than the other dialect-groups.
From Rev. H. C. Buckner's Creek Grammar, with its numerous defects, I have extracted but a few conjugational forms of the verb isita to take, but have availed myself of some linguistic manuscripts of Mrs. A. E. W. Robertson, the industrious teacher and translator of many parts of the Bible into Creek.
The re-translation of the legend into Creek and Hitchiti is due to Judge G. W. Stidham, of Eufaula, Indian Territory, who in infancy witnessed the emigration of his tribe, the Hitchiti, from the Chatahuchi River into their present location. My heartfelt thanks are also due to other Indians, who have materially helped me in my repeated revisions of the subject matter embodied in these volumes, and in other investigations. They were the Creek delegates to the Federal government, Chiefs Chicote and Ispahidshi, Messrs. S. B. Callaghan, Grayson and Hodge.
I also fully acknowledge the services tendered by the officers of the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, as well as by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton and by General Albert Pike, who placed the rich shelves of their libraries at my disposition. In the kindest manner I was furnished with scientific statements of various kinds by Messrs. W. R. Gerard, C. C. Royce and Dr. W. C. Hoffmann.
Southern Families of Indians
Shetimasha Indians
Taensa Indians
Tequesta Indians
Timucua Indians
Tonica Indians
Yuchi Indians
Allophylic Languages Among Southern Tribes
The Maskoki Family of Tribes
The Name Maskoki: Its Use and Signification
The Common Maskoki Language
Maskoki Word Similiarities
Alibamu Indians
Apalachi Indians
Cha'hta Indians
Cha'hta Tribes Of The Gulf Coast
The Cha'hta Language
Chicasa Indians
Hitchiti Indians
Hitchiti Language
Koassáti Indians
Mikasuki Indians
Seminole Indians
Yamacraw Indians
Yamassi Indians
Indian Tribes On The Yazoo River
Creek Indians
Creek Settlements
List of Creek Towns
Creek Government
Creek Tribal Divisions And Gentes
Civil Government Of The Creek Tribe
The Creek Warrior Class
Creek War Titles
Creek War Customs And Tactics
The Creek Public Square
The Annual Creek Busk
Additional Creek Ethnographic Notes
Notes On Creek History
Indian Migration Legends
Creek Migration Legends

Native Americans in the United States
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This article is about the indigenous peoples of the United States. For other indigenous peoples see Indigenous peoples (disambiguation)


Native Americans in the United States is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as intact political communities. Native Americans have also been known as Indians, American Indians, Aboriginal Americans, Amerindians, Amerinds, Colored,First Americans, Indigenous, Original Americans, Red Indians, or Red Men.
European colonization of the Americas led to centuries of conflict and adjustment between Old and New World societies. Most of the written historical record about Native Americans was made by Europeans after initial contact. Native Americans lived in hunter/farmer subsistence societies with significantly different value systems than those of the European colonists. The differences in culture between the Native Americans and Europeans, and the shifting alliances among different nations of each culture, led to great misunderstandings and long lasting cultural conflicts.
Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the United States of America vary significantly, ranging from 1 million to 18 million.After the colonies revolted against Great Britain and established the United States of America, the ideology of Manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. In the late 18th century, George Washington and Henry Knox conceived of the idea of "civilizing" Native Americans in preparation of American citizenship.Assimilation (whether voluntary as with the Choctaw, or forced) became a consistent policy through American administrations. In the early decades of the 19th century, Native Americans of the American Deep South were removed from their homelands to accommodate American expansion. By the American Civil War, many Native American nations had been relocated west of the Mississippi River. Major Native American resistance took place in the form of "Indian Wars," which were frequent up until the 1890s.
Native Americans today have a unique relationship with the United States of America. They can be found as members of nations, tribes, or bands of Native Americans who have sovereignty or independence from the government of the United States. Their societies and cultures still flourish amidst a larger immigrated American populace of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and European peoples. Native Americans who were not already U.S. citizens were granted citizenship in 1924 by the Congress of the United States.

Indian American
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For American Indians, see Native Americans in the United States or Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Indian American

Notable Indian Americans (left to right):Indra Nooyi · Bobby Jindal · Vinod KhoslaNoureen Dewulf · Fareed Zakaria · Norah Jones · Kalpana Chawla · Kal Penn · M. Night Shyamalan
Total population
2,765,815[1]0.92% of the U.S. population (2007)
Regions with significant populations
New Jersey · New York City · Los Angeles · San Francisco Bay Area · Chicago · Dallas · Houston · Philadelphia · Washington-Baltimore
Languages
American English · Hindi[2] · Gujarati[2] · Urdu[2] · other Indian languages
Religion
Hinduism · Sikhism · Islam · Christianity · Jainism · Buddhism · Zoroastrianism · Atheism · Agnosticism · others
Indian Americans are Americans who are of Indian ancestry. The U.S. Census Bureau popularized the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with "American Indian".
In North America the term Indian has an ambiguous meaning. Historically, Indian was commonly used to indicate Native American. If a more specific term was needed, American Indian and East Indian were commonly used. American Indian has fallen out of favor and Native American is more commonly used to refer to the Indigenous peoples of North America. East Indian is still in common use. Currently South Asian is often used instead of East Indian. While some consider it derogatory, people of Indian origin use the term Desi to refer to the diasporic subculture of overseas Indians. The word "desi" means "of the country/homeland" in Hindi and is also used as "countryman" in the U.S..
A number of Indian Americans came to the U.S. via Indian communities in other countries such as Fiji, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, the United Kingdom (where over 2.7% of the population is Indian), Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, Canada, Guyana, Mauritius and nations of Southeast Asia such as Malaysia and Singapore. Indian Americans are mostly Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Christian and Jain and are among the most highly educated in American demographics