of the Shawano from Tennessee is Haywood (Natural and Aboriginal
History of Tennessee, pp. 222-224). The Schoolcraft reference is from
Notes on the Iroquois, p. 160, and the notice of the Cherokee-Delaware
war from Loskiel, Mission of United Brethren, p. 128, and Heckewelder,
Indian Nations, p. 88. The Tunâ'i story is from Wafford; the other
incidents from Swimmer.
Shawano--The Shawano or Shawnee were one of the most important
of the Algonquian tribes. Their most noted chief was the great
Tecumtha. The meaning of the name is doubtful. It is commonly
interpreted "Southerners," from the Algonquian shawan, "the south,"
but may have come from another Algonquian word signifying "salt"
(siutagan, sewetagan, etc., from sewan, "sweet, pungent"). Unlike
the southern Indians generally, the Shawano were great salt users,
and carried on an extensive salt manufacture by boiling at the salt
springs of southwestern Virginia, furnishing the product in trade to
other tribes. They have thirteen clans--Wolf, Loon, Bear, Buzzard,
Panther, Owl, Turkey, Deer, Raccoon, Turtle, Snake, Horse, and Rabbit
(Morgan), the clan of the individual being indicated by his name. They
are organized also into four divisions or bands, perhaps originally
independent allied tribes, viz, Piqua, Mequachake, Kiscopocoke, and
Chilicothe. To the second of these belonged the hereditary priesthood,
but the first was most prominent and apparently most numerous. The
Shawano were of very wandering and warlike habit. Their earliest
historical habitat appears to have been on the middle Savannah river,
which takes its name from them, but before the end of the seventeenth
century we find a portion of them, apparently the main body, occupying
the basin of the Cumberland river in Tennessee and the adjacent region
of Kentucky. About the year 1692 most of those remaining in South
Carolina moved northward and settled upon the upper Delaware river,
with their relatives and friends the Delaware and Mahican. These
emigrants appear to have been of the Piqua division. Up to about the
year 1730 the Shawano still had a town on Savannah river, near Augusta,
from which they were finally driven by the Cherokee. From their former
intimate association with the Uchee, living in the same neighborhood,
some early writers have incorrectly supposed the two tribes to be
the same. A part of the Shawano joined the Creek confederary, and up
to the beginning of the last century, and probably until the final
removal to the West, occupied a separate town and retained their
distinct language. Those settled upon the Cumberland were afterward
expelled by the Cherokee and Chickasaw, and retired to the upper waters
of the Ohio under protection of the Delaware, who had given refuge
to the original emigrants from South Carolina. With the advance of
the white settlements the two tribes moved westward into Ohio, the
Shawano fixing themselves in the vicinity of the present Piqua and
Chillicothe about the year 1750. They took a leading part in the French
and Indian war, Pontiac's war, the Revolution, and the war of 1812. In
1793 a considerable band settled in Missouri upon lands granted by
the Spanish government. As a result of successive sales and removals
all that remain of the tribe are now established in Indian Territory,
about one-half being incorporated with the Cherokee Nation. In 1900
they numbered about 1,580, viz, in Cherokee Nation (in 1898), 790;
Absentee Shawnee of Sac and Fox Agency, 509; Absentee Shawnee of Big
Jim's band, special agency, 184; Eastern Shawnee of Quapaw Agency,