Note 25 — V—THE MYTHS (continued 5)

Just here the Cherokee tradition takes them up, under the name of Anin′tsĭ, abbreviated from Ani′-Na′ʻtsĭ, the plural of Na′ʻtsĭ. From a chance coincidence with the word for pine tree, naʻtsĭ′, some English speaking Indians have rendered this name as “Pine Indians.” The Cherokee generally agree that the Natchez came to them from South Carolina, though some say that they came from the Creek country. It is probable that the first refugees were from Carolina and were joined later by others from the Creeks and the Chickasaw. Bienville states, in 1742, that some of them had gone to the Cherokee directly from the Chickasaw when they found the latter too hard pressed by the French to be able to care for them.25 They seem to have been regarded by the Cherokee as a race of wizards and conjurers, a view which was probably due in part to their peculiar religious rites and in part to the interest which belonged to them as the remnant of an extirpated tribe. Although we have no direct knowledge on the subject, there is every reason to suppose that the two tribes had had communication with each other long before the period of the Natchez war.