or two before, having felt, in their original position,
west, arid south
revolutionary: .movements which preceded/the
overthrow of. the Toltec and the establishment
of the Aztec empire in Mexican America, g
Tbere are but two words left in ourpeograpip*
supposed to be of the ancient Alleghan language.^
These ate Alleghany, and Yioghdogany, the latter
being the name of a .stream whieh falls into the
Monongahela, on its right bank, about twenty
miles above Pittsburgh.;
Tradition, not of the highest character, gives
us the words T a llig eu , or T alligw ee^,as the name
of this ancient nation, although it is nearly identical
in sounds with the existing and true name
of the Cherokees, which, according to the late
Elias Boudinot (a Cherokee), is 'Itsailakee. - Gol.
©ihsoh, a plain man,.' an Indian trader .and no
philologist, who furnished Mr. Jefferson with
Indian vocabularies of the dialects o f his. day, to
be used in answer ta-tihe-inquiries of Catharine
the Gfreat,f expressed an opinior^that this ancient
people did not use a T before the qpithet, but
were c a lle d AUegeuieei Tradition has, however,
strictly speaking, preserved neither of these terras,
although both appear to have strong affinities with
them. The word Alleghany has come down to
us, from the earliest tiip.es, as the name of the
* Other names nave beeit subsequently’found, and. may be
h ereafter brought forward, as vestiges eiAike AUegfan lan g
uage.
t T id e T rans. Royal Academy,. ReteesKurgh..
great right-hand ferk of the Ohio, and also as the
name, from the samè remote period of antiquity,
of thHbham of mountains of which the stream
itself may be-sëM to be the most -remote north-
'ë'âsterly tributary. In this form it is evidently
a local term, applied geographically, according
to thje gfcral:principles oftke Indian languages,
like hannd in theSusqueliamia, and hannock in the
EajSpahannobk* which appear to.denote,' in each
ôaser a fivér, qr « torrent of water. By removing
this^ocal inflection, we have Alleghan as the
proper term for the people, and I have felt sus-
taihedUhy this inductive process-- in „ regarding
Alleghan a« the!original ©ognpmen of the mound
builders of'bforth- America.
Having- thus^given my .views' with jespect to
ÎÈ^articular word which awakened this discussion,
permit me no wlto-turn to the other matters^
ho;confidhhfiy‘tedUght forward by theMseeretary
‘ of the Maryland HislbricalSociety: §
The Iroquois affirm that they formerly lived
In the area of thé^Cherokeé country* Captain
Smith met a warparty of thfe nation, in exploring
one of the rivers of Virginia in 1608v So late as
the era of the settlement of North Carolina, they
brought off to the north thë last of their cantons,
in the , tribe of the Tuscaroras. They sold the
lands as far South as Kentucky river.f They
quitclaim ed the :soil in northern Virginia and
Maryland, and they quite forbid all sales of
* Clinton’s Discourse, N. Y. H- Sod.
+ Imlay’s Hist. KenkA