Yuchi Ceremonial Life : Performance Meaning and Tradition in a Contemporary American Indian Community

The Yuchis are one of the least known yet most distinctive of the Native groups in the American southeast. Located in late prehistoric times in eastern Tennessee, they played an important historical role at various times during the last five centuries and in many ways served as a bridge between their southeastern neighbours and Native communities in the northeast. First noted by the Soto expedition in the 16th century, the Yuchis moved several times and made many alliances over the next few centuries. The famous naturalist William Bartram visited a Yuchi town in 1775, at a time when they had moved near Creek communities in Georgia and become allied with them. This alliance had long-lasting repercussions: when the United States government forced most southeastern groups to move to Oklahoma in the early 19th century, the Yuchis were classified as Creeks and placed under the jurisdiction of the Creek Nation. Today, despite the existence of a separate language and their distinct history, culture, and religious traditions, the Yuchis are not recognized as a sovereign people by the Creek Nation or the United States.