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Show i8so] SOUTHEASTERN INDIANS 167 dence and government, though kept up in form, seem to be gradually losing ground. When visited by De Soto they were living in large and permanent villages of log houses and practised agriculture extensively. 1 From the Cherokee frontier to the gulf, and between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, the country was occupied by the Muskhogean or Maskoki family, of which the greater portion was included in the Creek confederacy, and as such divided honors with the Cherokee in early importance. The leading tribes of the stock were the Apalache, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek or Maskoki, and Seminole. Of these the Choctaw held the western frontier, on the Mississippi; the Chickasaw and Apalache the central region, in the present state of Alabama; while the Creek and Seminole occupied the eastern border, chiefly in the states of Georgia and Florida. The early writers comment on the striking diversity in physical type offered by the different branches of the family: the Creek were tall and slender, while the Chickasaw, their near relatives and neighbors, were short, stocky, and heavily built. There seems also to have been a considerable difference in customs between the eastern and the western members of the stock. 1 Cf. Royce, " The Cherokee Nation of Indians " ( Bureau of Ethnology, Fifth Annual Report); Mooney, " Myths of the Cherokee" ( Bureau of Ethnology, Nineteenth Annual Report); Adair, History of the American Indians. |