South Carolina SC Yuchi Indians

South Carolina – Indians, Native Americans – Yuchi

Name, Language

Active - officially recognized as members of the Muscogee Creek Nation, but otherwise maintain their own tribal culture

Traditional: Primarily Eastern Tennessee and Georgia, but a few Yuchi bands lived in South Carolina along the Savannah River from approximately 1661-1751.
Today: Oklahoma, especially in the communities of Sapulpa, Bristow, and Kellyville. Columbus College in Columbus, Georgia, as well as the Chattahoochie Indian Heritage Association, sponsor annual Yuchi homecomings near their old village sites in that area. Yuchi participants include shell shakers, language speakers, and stomp dance leaders.

Small bands of Yuchi may have moved into South Carolina in 1661, living along the Savannah River.
The Yuchi fought with the Yemassee and other tribes against white settlers in the Yemassee War of 1715.
Left South Carolina, and moved west to join the Creeks in 1751.

Homes: Stuctures covered with bark, clay, or woven mats
Villages: Built along streams; homes were grouped around a central square where ceremonies and social gatherings took place

Farming: Primarily corn
Fishing: Freshwater fish sometimes caught by poisoning streams to stun fish
Hunting: Deer, other small game hunted using blow guns, bows and arrows, and dogs

The Yuchi traditionally associate the sun with their tribal origin accounts.
Like many tribes of the southeast, they held a yearly corn harvest ceremony. Their Green Corn ceremonies continue to be held to this day. In Oklahoma there are three ceremonial grounds: Kellyville, Iron Post, and Duck Creek. Of the three, Kellyville is considered to be pure Yuchi. The other two, while Yuchi in name, nevertheless have strong Creek components as well.
Infants, believed to be connected to the creator spirit for some time after birth, were not named until they were four or five days old.

Special thanks to Gary White Deer of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma for his help with this page.
Milling, Chapman J. Red Carolinians, second edition. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1969, pp. 179-87.
Leitch, Barbara A Concise Dictionary of Indian Tribes of North America. Algonac, MI: Reference Publications, 1979, pp. 536-38.
Swanton, John R. The Indian Tribes of North America. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Instition Press, 1984, pp. 103-4.

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