Yuchi Indians – Native Americans in SC

South Carolina SC Native Americans SC Indian Tribes SC Yuchi Indians

Name, Language – Yuchi Indians

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

— Yuchi Indian Chief Kipahalgwa — Painted by Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck circa 1736 in Georgia © Birmingham Public Library, Southern History Room

Current Status – Yuchi Indians

• Active - as the Savannah River Band of Euchee (Uchean) Indians which is not a state nor a federally recognized organization. Others may be officially recognized as members of the Muscogee Nation, but otherwise maintain their own tribal culture.
  

Contact Information – Yuchi Indians

• Savannah River Band of Euchee (Uchean) Indians - incorporated as a South Carolina non-profit organization
  11023 Burton Ferry Highway
  Allendale, SC 29810
  Phone: 803-702-4403
  Email: heritage@srbeucheetribalnation.org

SC Location, Territory – Yuchi Indians

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

• Today: In the communities of Allendale, Barnwell, Aiken, and Edgefield in South Carolina.
  – 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. Plus the area of Screven County and Burke County in Georgia. Traditional homecoming celebrations are held at Asbury A.M.E Church in Screven County, GA. Ceremonies are held at historical village sites in the Savannah River Valley. Ucheee participants includes, language speakers, stomp dancers, tribal storytellers.
  – Others have settled in Oklahoma, especially in the communities of Sapulpa, Bristow, and Kellyville.
  

SC Population Estimates – Yuchi Indians

• 1715: 400
• 1730: 200
• 1883: 500 - 700
• 2013: 3,800

History – Yuchi Indians

• 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.
  

• Many left South Carolina and moved west to join the Creeks in 1751.
  

Dwellings – Yuchi Indians

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

Food – Yuchi Indians

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

— Yuchi Big Turtle Dance — Taken in 1909, location and photographer are unknown © University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Beliefs and Practices – Yuchi Indians

• 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 the Allendale County communities of Hattieville, Little Hell, Saint Mary, and Brier Creek as well as Asbury and Pine Grove in Screven County, Georgia.
  
• 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.
  
• Used rabbit tobacco which was known as "live ever after", koon root, and saw palmetto for medicine.
  

Related Yuchi Indian Resources

• 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.
• Byron, Jim Preacher Allendale on the Savannah: Revisited, Smashwords eBook, 2012, pp. 11-12.
  
• Gatschet, Albert Samuel A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, Oxford, GB: Oxford University, 1884, p. 22.
  
• Gary White Deer of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
  
• Lonzado A. Langley of the Savannah River Band of Euchee (Uchean) Indians.
  

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