CHICKASAW TRADITIONS, CUSTOMS, ETC.  (cont.)
Page 545
 

Chycacha, the Napissa, the Quachas, Choutymachas, Yagenechito, speak the same language and understand the Bilochy, the Pascoboula." 10

The country of the Chickasaws was bounded on the north by the Ohio, on the west by the Mississippi, on the east by a line from the Mussel Shoals of the Tennessee to the Cumberland.  On the south it extended into the present State of Mississippi.  The preferred abodes of the Chickasaws were in the country about the headwaters of the Tombigby and the Yazoo rivers.  It is one of the finest countries as to natural conditions on the western continent, “where the grass is verdant in mid-winter; the blue-bird and the robin are heard in February; the springs of pure water gurgle up through the white sands, to flow through natural bowers of evergreen holly; and if the earth be but carelessly gashed to receive the kernel of maize, the thick corn springs abundantly from the fertile soil.  The region is as happy as any beneath the sun; and the love which it inspired made its occupants, though not mimerous, yet the most intrepid warriors of the south.”11

Piamingo,12 or the Mountain Leader, as he was sometimes called, a very noted chief of the Chickasaws, in a celebrated conference with the whites, thus described the lands of his tribe:

“I will describe the boundaries of our lands. It begins on the Ohio at the ridge which divides the waters of Tennessee and Cumberland, and extends with that ridge, eastwardly, as far as the most eastern waters of Elk River; thence to the Tennessee, at an old field, where a part of the Chickasaws formerly lived, this line to be so run as to include all the waters of Elk River, thence across the Tennessee, and a neck of land, to Tenchacunda creek a southern branch of the Tennessee, and up the same to its source; then to the waters of Tombigby, that is, to the west fork of Long Leaf Pine creek, and down it to the line of the Chickasaws and Choctaws, a little below the trading road."13

These bounds were afterwards confirmed by a certificate delivered to the Chickasaws by President Washington.

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10Margry.
11 Bancroft’s History of the United States.
12 His name was variously spelled as are many other Indian names.
13 Piamingo, Aug., 1792, at the Nashville Conference, the U. S. represented by Blount and Pickens, at which were present some Chickasaw and Choctaw chiefs and some Cherokees. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I.

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