South Carolina – Indians, Native Americans – Yuchi

South Carolina SC Native Americans SC Indian Tribes SC Yuchi Indians

Name, Language

• Alternate spellings: Hogologe, Uchee
• Possible meanings: "From far away"
• Language family: Yuchi - Uchean

— Yuchi Indian Chief — Painted by George Catlin at Fort Moultrie in January 1848 © Smithsonian American Art Museum

Current Status

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

SC Location, Territory

• Traditional: Primarily Eastern Tennessee and Georgia, but a few Yuchi bands lived in South Carolina along the Savannah River from approximately 1661 to 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.
  

Population Estimates

• 1715: 400

History

• Small bands of Yuchi 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.
  

Dwellings

• 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
  

Food

• 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
  

Beliefs and Practices

• 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.
  

Related Yuchi Indian Resources

• 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.