The Yuchi people, spelled Euchee and Uchee Native Americans!

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
One thing I thought of was the stone wall at Fort Mountain and the stories of who built it. Interesting in the link is how the Uchee had comparisons to the Sami and other Northern Europeans in looks, art, and customs.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
Oh, I saw a piece of pottery on the creek that looks to have a fish shape scratched in it. The man on the creek said some of what he has found has little pictures on it, animals, etc.

Is this common in Georgia? I once found a lot of pieces on Cat Island at the mouth of the Suwannee River in Florida. They didn't have any markings on them except the woven basket indentions or whatever.

I've never seen any pottery in Georgia or Florida with symbols.
 

Hillbilly stalker

Senior Member
I have read most tribes held a turtle in high regards and thought they had strong medicine. We had / have Cawtaba’s around here. Pottery was their specialty, I have found several pieces and have yet to find a turtle design. We have have pottery makers at our Native American Center and they make several different designs, but I haven’t noticed animals. I‘ll make another trip and ask.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
UCHEE PATH

This highway coincides closely with a segment of a noted east-west Indian route called the Lower Uchee Path. Beginning at Old Town on the Ogeechee, the trail led this way by Carr’s Shoals, on the Oconee, above Dublin, thence via Cochran, Hawkinsville and Montezuma to Uchee Town on the Chattahoochee River, in Russell County, Alabama.

At the Ogeechee, the trail connected with various paths leading from former Uchee settlements on the middle Savannah River.

The route was opened around 1729 when the Uchees began removing to the town on the Chattahoochee River. This way paralleled another trail to the northward which was known as the Upper Uchee Path.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
Archaeological evidence in the Chattahoochee and Flint River Valleys suggests that the first Muskogean farmers entered northwest Georgia around 400 BC, after migrating from west-central Mexico. However, the region was probably was already occupied by ancestors of the Yuchi and Southern Siouans with languages similar to the Catawba. There may have been other ethnic groups whose identities have been concealed by time. Agricultural technology, cultural traditions and DNA probably blended between these peoples. Modern “Creek” Indians may represent a genetic mix of several indigenous ethnic groups.
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
The Yuchi in early historic times lived in the foothills of NC, in the neighborhood of modern-day Hickory, Morganton, and Marion. The Cherokee called them "Suwali." They later migrated to central TN. The Swannanoa Gap and the town of Swannanoa just east of Asheville are named for them, in an English corruption of the Cherokee "Path to the Suwali."
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
There is another Euchee Creek and there was a Euchee Town on it. It is on Fort Benning. Euchee Town’ (also called Uchee Town), a large settlement on the Chattahoochee River, was documented from the middle to late 18th century. It was located near Euchee (or Uchee) Creek about ten miles downriver from the Muscogee Creek settlement of Coweta Old Town.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
The Yuchi in early historic times lived in the foothills of NC, in the neighborhood of modern-day Hickory, Morganton, and Marion. The Cherokee called them "Suwali." They later migrated to central TN. The Swannanoa Gap and the town of Swannanoa just east of Asheville are named for them, in an English corruption of the Cherokee "Path to the Suwali."
This is an interesting read. Lots of various names of the Piedmont tribes.
Looks like The Swannanoa Gap was a major entrance into the mountains for a lot of generations of peoples.

https://accessgenealogy.com/north-carolina/the-sara-indians.htm
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
This is an interesting read. Lots of various names of the Piedmont tribes.
Looks like The Swannanoa Gap was a major entrance into the mountains for a lot of generations of peoples.

https://accessgenealogy.com/north-carolina/the-sara-indians.htm
And De Soto. There is a good book called "The Road" that details the history of the building of a railroad through the Swannanoa Gap in the late 1800s to open up western NC to the rest of the world. It was built mostly with the labor of black convicts from NC prisons. Hundreds of them died building a less than 50 mile stretch of rail.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
What I'm gathering from some reading is many researchers think the Euchee may have come to Georgia from Europe. In this link the writer is suggesting that when ancient vessels left Europe, they'd end up in Georgia, Florida, or even the islands south of Florida.
Something about the currents and winds.

Plus similarities in appearance, language, glyphs, etc. and now DNA.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/irish-scottish-sami-indians-southeastern-united-states-thornton
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member

Nicodemus

The Recluse
Staff member
In the linked article in the first post, it says they are the oldest indigenous people in the Southeast.

I don`t think so.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
My wife asked me why they had so many different spellings. I said well it was spelled by the way the European asking the Indian thought it sounded. Depending on if that European was Spanish, English, or French.
I would say this is true about every Indian name or tribe. The link above goes pretty deep into the linguistics of it all. I never knew Native Americans rolled their R's.

"Muskogee Creeks and Uchees rolled their R’s so hard that English and French speakers typically wrote the sounds as an L. Spanish speakers typically used a letter R, because Spanish also rolls the R’s. So the Spanish labeled the province around Savannah, GA – Chikora, while the French labeled it, Chikola, and the British used words, closer to the actual indigenous name . . . either Palachicola or Palachicora."

Could you imagine listening to a Native American say something and then figure out how to spell it in English?
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
In the linked article in the first post, it says they are the oldest indigenous people in the Southeast.

I don`t think so.
I wouldn't think so either, I'm not saying I agree with all what they are saying, just looking at the possibilities.

I would agree that all the indigenous people in the Southeast and America for that matter didn't all come from crossing the Bering Strait. I'm sure some of them sailed here at various times.

Who is the oldest indigenous people in the Southeast?
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
The Uchee have been completed erased from Georgia History books and from maps showing the traditional locations of indigenous tribes in the United States. They are virtually unknown to most anthropologists in the United States despite occupying a vast territory at the time of European contact, which was far larger than that actually occupied by the Cherokees.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/irish-scottish-sami-indians-southeastern-united-states-thornton
Some of that stuff from the links is pure fantasy and personal speculation. Some of it may be true, but I would take most of that with a grain of salt.

As for your quote, no, they haven't been erased from history or books or maps. And they didn't hold that vast of a territory at the time of European contact. The locations and sizes of the tribes they encountered were well-documented by the first European explorers. Most of them place the Yuchi/Suwali in a minor territory in the foothills of the NC mountains at time of contact, and later in east-central TN.
 

Nicodemus

The Recluse
Staff member
I wouldn't think so either, I'm not saying I agree with all what they are saying, just looking at the possibilities.

I would agree that all the indigenous people in the Southeast and America for that matter didn't all come from crossing the Bering Strait. I'm sure some of them sailed here at various times.

Who is the oldest indigenous people in the Southeast?


The Paleo People. Unless you want to get into the Solutreans.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
I wonder who Richard Thornton is? Looks like he's been on the History Channel. He said this;

"Over 2,000 years before Maya refugees came to Georgia and at least 1200 years before Panoan immigrants arrived there from Peru, Bronze Age mariners from Northwestern Europe sailed up the Savannah River and established gold mining colonies. They left behind extraordinary petroglyphs, which are identical to their counterparts in Europe, but also a surprising number of geographic place names. One petroglyphic rock at the headwaters of the Savannah River even displays three Bronze Age galleys."
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
I wouldn't think so either, I'm not saying I agree with all what they are saying, just looking at the possibilities.

I would agree that all the indigenous people in the Southeast and America for that matter didn't all come from crossing the Bering Strait. I'm sure some of them sailed here at various times.

Who is the oldest indigenous people in the Southeast?
I think there was a lot more diversity here in North America than is currently taught, for sure. I think most of the oldest cultures in the southeast were exterminated or pushed out by newcomers from the north and west over the years, and I would guess they were of diverse ethnicities. I would vote for the Natchez being one of the oldest surviving southern cultures at the time of contact. They were a very different people in both appearance, custom, and religion than most of the other tribes. As for oldest in general, there were Paleolithic hunters here long before any of the Siouan, Algonkian, or Iroquoian historic tribes migrated to the southeast.
 
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