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Show 198 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE lETH. ANN. 19 man of Elvas, China by Biedma in the Documentos, China by a misprint in an English rendering, and Ychiaha by Garcilaso. It appears as Chiha on an English map of 1762 reproduced in Winsor, Westward Movement, page 31, 1897. Gallatin spells it Ichiaha, while Williams and Fairbanks, by misprint, make it Chiapa. According to both Ranjel and Elvas the army entered it on the 5th of June, although the former makes it four days from Canasagua, while the other makes it five. Biedma says it was four days from Guaxule, and, finally, Garcilaso says it was six days and thirty leagues from Guaxule and on the same river, which was, here at Chiaha, as large as the Guadalquivir at Sevilla. As we have seen, there is a great discrepancy in the statements of the distance from Cofitachiqui to this point. All four authorities agree that the town was on an island in the river, along which they had been marching for some time ( Garcilaso, Ranjel), but while the Elvas narrative makes the island " two crossbow shot" in length above the town and one league in length below it, Garcilaso calls it a " great island more than five leagues long." On both sides of the island the stream was very broad and easily waded ( Elvas). Finding welcome and food for men and horses the Spaniards rested here nearly a month ( June 6- 28, Ranjel; twenty- six or twenty- seven days, Biedma; thirty days, Elvas). In spite of the danger from attack De Soto allowed his men to sleep under trees in the open air, " because it was very hot and the people should have suffered great extremity if it had not been so" ( Elvas). This in itself is evidence that the place was pretty far to the south, as it was yet only the first week in June. The town was subject to the chief of the great province of Coca, farther to the west. From here onward they began to meet palisaded towns. On the theory that the march was down Coosa river, every commentator hitherto has located Chiaha at some point upon this stream, either in Alabama or Georgia. Gallatin ( 1836) says that it " must have been on the Coosa, probably some distance below the site of New Echota." He notes a similarity of sound between Ichiaha and " Echoy" ( Itseyl), a Cherokee town name. Williams ( 1837) says that it was on Mobile ( i. e., the Alabama or lower Coosa river). Meek ( 1839) says " there can be little doubt that Chiaha was situated but a short distance above the junction of the Coosa and Chattooga rivers," i. e., not far within the Alabama line. He notes the occurrence of a " Chiaha" ( Chehawhaw) creek near Talladega, Alabama. In regard to the island upon which the town was said to have been situated he says: " There is no such island now in the Coosa. It is probable that the Spaniards either mistook the peninsula formed by the junction of two rivers, the Coosa and Chattooga, for an island, or that those two rivers were originally united so as to form an island near their present confluence. We have heard this latter supposition asserted by persons well acquainted with the country."- Romantic Passages, p. 222,1857. Monette ( 1846) puts it on Etowah branch of the Coosa, probably in Floyd county, Georgia. Pickett ( 1851), followed in turn by Irving, Jones, and Shea, locates it at " the site of the modern Rome." The " island" is interpreted to mean the space between the two streams above the confluence. Pickett, as has been stated, bases his statements chiefly or entirely upon Indian traditions as obtained from half breeds or traders. How much information can be gathered from such sources in regard to events that transpired three centuries before may be estimated by considering how much an illiterate mountaineer of the same region might be able to tell concerning the founding of the Georgia colony. Pickett himself seems to have been entirely unaware of the later Spanish expeditions of Pardo and De Luna through the same country, as he makes no mention of them in his history of Alabama, but ascribes everything to De Soto. Concerning Chiaha he says: " The most ancient Cherokee Indians, whose tradition has been handed down to us through old Indian traders, disagree as to the precise place [!] where De Soto crossed the Oostanaula to get over into the town of Chiaha- some asserting that he |