Yuchi ("Yu che), possibly "from far away" or possibly Hitchiti for "People of Another Language." The tribe consisted of several distinct, named bands, one of which may have been called Chisca. They were culturally similar to the Catawba Indians. See also Creek.
Location Yuchis lived in the eastern Tennessee hills in the mid-sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century they built towns on the Ohio River and in Illinois. By later in that century they had expanded into the Savannah River region and into parts of Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Today, most Yuchis live in Oklahoma.
Population There were at least 2,500 Yuchis in the mid-seventeenth century and around 1,500 in the early 1990s.
Language Yuchean was an linguistic isolate, possibly related to the Siouan language family.
Historical Information
History Yuchis may have descended from Siouan peoples. They may have encountered Hernando de Soto around 1540 but were certainly attacked by the Spanish in 1566. In the 1630s, Yuchi bands began a process of leaving the Appalachian highlands to raid Spanish settlements in Florida. Some of these bands remained in the south, settling in west Florida among the Upper Creeks. The people encountered British settlers in Tennessee and North Carolina in the 1670s.
In the mid- to late seventeenth century, under pressure by the Shawnee, many Yuchi bands left the high country and followed the Savannah River toward coastal Georgia. They joined Yuchis who had migrated there earlier. With the Creek, both groups became British allies, conducting slave raids for them on Spanish settlements and among other tribes, such as the Apalachee, Timucua, Calusa, Guale, and Cusabo. This wave was soon driven away from the Savannah, however, and moved west toward the Chattahoochee River in central Alabama. A final wave of Yuchis migrated south in the early eighteenth century. By the late 1700s, most Yuchis were living near the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, although some remained in southeast Georgia.
By the nineteenth century, the Yuchi no longer existed as a tribe, having combined with other peoples. Yuchis in Tennessee and North Carolina merged with the Cherokee. Georgia Yuchis joined the Creeks, and Florida Yuchis joined the Seminoles. As many as 900 Yuchis were removed with the Creeks to Indian Territory in 1836. They formed 11 communities in present-day Creek County, Oklahoma.
In the early twentieth century, the Yuchis remained legally united with the Creeks but maintained their own stomp grounds and churches. They refused their own charter in 1938, fearing the motives of the federal government. They maintained their own language and customs, as well as ties to religious sites in Georgia, through the 1950s.
Religion The sun was recognized as the chief deity and power. The three-day corn harvest festival included dancing, a new fire ceremony, and male deep scarring. The Green Corn festival included a stickball game as well as the formal initiation of boys into manhood. Disease was said to be caused by offended animal spirits; shamans cured with herbs, chants, and dancing. One of the four souls possessed by each person could pass to another life.
Government Each band had its own chief and leadership structure.
Customs Yuchis belonged to one of two societies, chief and warrior. Membership was determined by patrilineal descent. Babies were named on the fourth day of life. Matrilineal clans may or may not antedate their associations with the Creeks.
Dwellings Yuchis built their villages—stockaded in the mid-seventeenth century—near streams. They grouped their houses around a central square used for ceremonial and social purposes. Houses were wood-frame structures covered with clay or woven mats and roofed with cypress bark or shingles.
Diet Corn, beans, and squash were planted in river valleys. Corn was the staple food. It was served in many ways and often mixed with other foods, including powdered hickory nuts and meat. Wood ash was added for flavor. Men hunted buffalo, bear, elk, deer, turkey, and birds. They used calls to attract deer and turkey and possibly fire to drive deer. Game might be roasted on a cottonwood stick over an open fire. Women gathered a number of wild foods, including fruits, nuts, and berries. Hickory nut oil was preserved and used in cooking or as a beverage.
Key Technology Men hunted using bows and arrows and blowguns (for birds and small game). Bows were made of Osage orange, sassafras, hickory, or other woods, with squirrel skin, deer sinew, or rawhide strings. Arrows were wooden or cane, pointed with stone and feathered with hawk and turkey tail feathers. Dogs assisted on the hunt. Fish were taken with willow and hickory traps, cane harpoons, various hook devices, wooden spears, and poisons.
Most men owned two large leather pouches decorated with beads and slung over the shoulder on straps. Turkey-feather fans were used mostly by men to keep insects away and as a sign of leadership. Log mortars and wooden pestles may also have had religious significance. Sewing awls were made of deer antler with bone points. The people also made pottery, baskets, and assorted wooden utensils and tools.
Trade The Yuchi may have been a link in moving copper south from the Great Lakes. Some groups, using the Choctaw trade language, traded in flint or salt. Their pipes came from the Cherokee and Natchez, and they also traded for catlinite pipes from the early eighteenth century on. In the early contact period they also traded horses for other non-native goods.
Notable Arts Especially fine pottery included pipes and decorated bowls. Women also made fine cane and split hickory baskets. Turtles and snakes were a common design. Other design motifs included geometric diamonds made of Vs and Ws.
Transportation Canoes were hollowed out of logs and may also have been made of bark.
Dress Men wore deerskin leggings, sashes, and moccasins, although they frequently went barefoot. In the later eighteenth century they wore bright-colored cloth shirts and jackets, modified breechclouts, leggings tied to a belt, cloth turbans, and various ornaments. Women wore cloth dresses, short leggings, belts, moccasins, and personal ornaments.
Men wore their hair in a roach with a fringe of hair along the forehead. Only unmarried women painted their faces, although the practice later became widespread. A male’s face paint pattern was related to his particular society. It was worn on ceremonial occasions, including ball games, and at death.
War and Weapons Little is known about aboriginal Yuchi war practices. Weapons probably included the bow and arrow as well as knives, clubs, hatchets, and possibly shields. They attacked and raided many neighboring tribes as British allies in the seventeenth century.
Contemporary Information
Government/Reservations Yuchis maintain three traditional ceremonial grounds in Oklahoma: Polecat, Sand Creek, and Duck Creek. The headquarters of the Yuchi Tribal Organization is in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.
Economy Yuchis are fully integrated into the local mixed-farming economy.
Legal Status The Yuchi Tribal Organization is presently unrecognized. The Yuchi Nation was provisionally denied federal recognition in 1998.
Daily Life Many Christian Yuchis belong to the Pickett Prairie Methodist Church. There is also a Yuchi chapter of the Native American Church. Yuchi is still spoken.
