Talk:Chisca

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Some have identified the Chiska as Shawnee, perhaps of the Kishkapo (modern Kishpoko) division. The two syllables -kapo- and -poko- (and alternants) are switched in many forms of the name Kishkopo. The meaning of the name is not known to Shawnee for the past two hundred years, though one of my Shawnee consultants gave a folk etymology of Popcorn Man for Kishpokotha, based on Kish- 'hot' plus -poo-poo- 'popping sound' (as she said). -- Noel Schutz

Much of what contemporary scholars say about the Chisca is based on speculations made by "authority figures" of anthropology in the past, who really didn't do their homework. They made statements about the Chisca joining the Shawnee or Uchee (Yuchi is a spelling used by Tennessee frontiersmen). Little attention is given to linguistics or colonial archives as primary sources of information.

From the Apalache Foundation in Georgia's Nacoochee Valley

Chiska is the Panoan word for "bird". The Panoans were from Peru. Their place names dot the Southern Highlands and their DNA markers appear in both the Eastern Creeks and the Cherokee Bird Clan, which in Cherokee is called the Ani-Chiskwa, so we can assume that many Chisca survivors became the Bird Clan of the Cherokees. However, there was also a Chiska Tribal Division in the Creek Confederacy. That should be expected since the Native American name for the Savannah River was the Chiska-hatchee or Chiska River. Just as in the case of the Uchee, the primary location of the Chiska was in eastern Georgia. Mid-20th century University of Tennessee anthropology professors made the mistake of thinking that eastern Tennessee was the center of the world. However, the Chiskee had departed for the Chattahoochee River in western Georgia, when Savannah was founded in 1733, whereas the Uchee were the predominant ethnic group in the Lower Savannah-Ogeechee Basin. The Uchee told British officials that their ancestors came from across the Atlantic and first settled on the coast of Georgia.

There is more to this story. There are still some Chiska living in eastern Peru, despite several massacres by the Spanish in the 1700s. The Peruvian and North American Chisca had identical appearances, consisting of a conical split cane helmet, black "makeup" on their faces to mimic a predator bird, a woven neck guard and a long tunic, which in the Southeast is called a "Creek Long Shirt." The Creek word for the Yaupon Holly and Sacred Black Drink is identical to the Panoan word. . . ase. The Sacred Black Drink and stomp dance are very much part of both people's cultural traditions. Indeed, Apalachen is the plural of Apalache, which is a Panoan hybrid word. As an Eastern Creek, my DNA is a mixture of Southern Mesoamerican and Panoan. That is typical for all of us. My comments on the Panoan words can be confirmed by referencing a Conibo, Shipibo or Caushibo dictionary online from the Institutio Verano in Peru. - Richard Thornton — Preceding unsigned comment added by Talamachusee (talk • contribs) 15:51, 30 December 2019 (UTC)


 * The "Apalache Foundation" is your foundation. Let's invite some other editors who have commented on your work. User:Huon, User:Carlstak User:Heironymous Rowe Doug Weller  talk 17:28, 30 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Complete without any mainstream scientific backing of the genetics, linguistics or archaeology in any reliable publication, whatsoever. At best this is all WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, but seems more to fall under WP:TINFOILHAT. If you can find anyone in academia to agree with it, I'd looove to see a link to such a publication.  He  iro 19:50, 30 December 2019 (UTC)


 * What a load of nonsense. First, Apalache Foundation Inc. was incorporated in 2014 and last registered the same year, and is now dissolved. Richard Thornton was its Secretary, CFO, and CEO. He is an architect and city planner, still with no credentials as an anthropologist or historian. He has concocted a new "hypothesis" that if true (it's not) would upend all ethnographic scholarship on the Muskogee peoples in the present day southeastern United States and the Huichol people of Mexico, asserting that "the Muskogee Creeks were not originally Muskogeans" and that there was a reverse migration of the Huichol from Mexico to the southeast, where "the Huichol immigrants lost most of their original tongue and began speaking a dialect of Choctaw or Chickasaw...". This is laughable on its face.


 * Thornton is just making stuff up here, with no substantiation whatsoever; for example, when he asserts that "The Creek word for the Yaupon Holly and Sacred Black Drink is identical to the Panoan word . . . ase. The Sacred Black Drink and stomp dance are very much part of both people's cultural traditions." Yaupon, i.e., Ilex vomitoria, from which the "black drink" is made, is native to the southeastern United States, with a disjunct population in the Mexican state of Chiapas. It does not occur in Peru or any part of South America.


 * He makes many other wild, outlandish claims, among them that the "Tamatli Cherokees of Hayes & Cherokee Counties, NC are a mixture of Itza Maya and Panoan (Peru)" [!], the "Towns County Indians in Northeast Georgia are a mixture of Itza Maya and Southern Arawaks from Peru" [!!], the "Northeast Georgia Creeks are a mixture of Itza Maya, Panoan and Uchee... the Uchee being defined as a mixture of Sami, Finnish, Basque and Pre-Celtic Iberian/Irish mixed with American Indian."[!!!]


 * I think that's enough. In a word, most of what Thornton writes is absurd fantasy, with no basis in reality, similar to his previous efforts to push his bogus hypothesis that the actual location of Fort Caroline was in Georgia. Carlstak (talk) 21:08, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't remember crossing paths with earlier, but the above makes me want to add a few citation needed tags. Claims such as those should be backed up with impeccable secondary sources such as peer-reviewed scholarly papers or academic textbooks. I don't know whether such sources exist, but unless and until they are presented here, there's nothing actionable in the comment above. Huon (talk) 23:05, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * No peer-reviewed scholarly papers or academic textbooks support these extraordinary claims, of course. I suspect he was testing the waters to see what kind of reception they might receive from other editors before doing all the work to compose and format new text for this article, which treats a rather obscure subject, perhaps thinking it might not be noticed and he could slip this stuff in. Carlstak (talk) 13:56, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * apologies, meant to add the page, see Talk:America Unearthed. Doug Weller  talk 14:14, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

First of all, we merged the Apalache Foundation into being a subsidiary of the Coweta Creek Tribe. It does have a current corporate charter. In response to your string of unresearched insults. How dare you, non-Native Americans with no professional credentials, tell me about my cultural heritage. You amateurs just did what you accused me of doing. You don't know our languages and you didn't bother to check a Native Language dictionary before writing this garbage. I will just tell you the facts. I have 8 years of university education and 45 years of professional experiences behind me. . . in many locations. I was the first recipient of the Barrett Fellowship, which enabled me to study Mesoamerican architecture and planning under the auspices of the INAH. Dr. Roman Pina-Chan, Director of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, was my coordinator. I am part Creek and Uchee. ALL of my Native American DNA is either Maya or Panoan DNA markers. The Uchee heritage shows up as Sami, Finnish and Pre-Gaelic Irish DNA. Dr. Pina-Chan was half Maya, so we got along grand. I was architect of Oklahoma's Trail of Tears Memorial and last year was elected Principal Chief of the Coweta Creek Tribe. In 2014, I was named one of the top 40 Historic Preservation scholars in the United States by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 2007, I became aware that something was terribly wrong with the official location of Fort Caroline while doing professional work for the American Museum of Natural History at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale on St. Catherines Island. They showed me copies of letters written by friars there, which stated that the ruins of Fort Caroline were a few hours canoe ride from the mission. Another document by a ship wrecked sailor on St. Simons Island said that the mouth of the May River was on the north end of the island. In fact, all European maps show this as the location of Fort Caroline. Then I discovered that William Bartram had visited the ruins of Fort San Mateo on the Altamaha River and described the ruins in his famous book.

Before talking about OUR Sacred Drink, did you bother to check a Panoan dictionary? Shipibo, Conibo and Caushibo dictionaries are on line. The Creek and Panoan word for both the holly bush and the Sacred Black Drink is ase. Their holly is very similar to the Yaupon, but does not have the same botanical name. There are also quite a few other Panoan words in the Creek language. The Appalachian Mountains got their name from the plural of Apalache, which is Apalachen. One other thing, you are playing with 16th century Europeanized Native American words. Very often the original word, looks very different in modern English phonetics, because the Spanish did not know how to express several of our sounds in their alphabet. Richard Thornton, Registered Architect & City Planner — Preceding unsigned comment added by Talamachusee (talk • contribs) 04:07, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * You may have done some good things and I don't disagree with everything you say above, but there's no reason to use you as a source. Your books are self-published, Georgia Parks and Recreation won't help you with your quest to show that Scandinavians settled in SE America and your shall I say politely disconnection with the real world at times led you to try to destroy my reputation off-wiki. Hopefully that's in the past and I'm only raising all of this to explain why you fail WP:RS. So if you want to edit this article, you need to use reliable academic sources. There's no point in arguing, that's our policy. I also note that Fort Caroline while mentioning the Georgia suggestion has not been changed to say it's in Georgia. And the Coweta Creek Tribe still seems unrecognised and the fact that you are Principal Chief of whatever it is doesn't make the merger of your foundation into it impressive. Oh, and well done for Creek Council Oak Tree but the source is a sales site, there must be something better. Doug Weller  talk 13:16, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * First, Talamachusee, you don't know a damn thing about my ancestry or that of anyone else commenting here, so what's your basis for saying we are non-Native Americans? You don't have one. For your information, my father's grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. He had light-brown hair and blue eyes, and he looked more Indian than you (I've seen your picture). You've produced no documentation by academic researchers to support your claims about the origin of the Chisca people, and you are an architect with no academic credentials as an archaeologist or a historian. The so-called "black drink" was given that name by British traders, but was called asi or assi by the Hitchiti-Mikasuki.


 * You claim that "Asebo (Ossabaw) Island, Georgia means "Place of the Yaupon Holly" in Panoan", but can't be bothered to tell us just which species of ilex was supposedly used by the "Panoans" in Peru, where Yaupon holly (ilex vomitoria) doesn't grow. Here you assert that "Uchee and Eastern Creek descendants are receiving DNA test results, which show them having substantial Maya, Panoan (Peru), Sami, Basque, Highland Scots and Ciarreigh (Black Irish) heritage", and refer to "...Panoan, the dominant language family of Satipo Province, Peru and originally, the Coastal Plain of Georgia", but oddly, you don't cite your sources for either of these extraordinary (to say the least) claims. Then you say, "Over 2,000 years before Maya refugees came to Georgia and at least 1200 years before Panoan immigrants arrived there from Peru, Bronze Age mariners from Northwestern Europe sailed up the Savannah River and established gold mining colonies." As far as I can see, all your alternative "history" is mere speculation based on dubious circumstantial "evidence" and coincidences. Show us the scientific evidence, rather than your laughable pseudo-scholarship, for these outrageous claims if you want to be taken seriously. Carlstak (talk) 16:23, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * My DNA results show a small bit of Andean and Mayan ancestry, but I don't take them seriously. See Blood quantum laws for its use, or lack of use, in Federal tribes. Also "DNA tests stand on shaky ground to define Native American identity" published in May by the National Human Genome Research Institute. See what Kim TallBear and other Native Americans think  about them here.  Doug Weller  talk 17:14, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Doug Weller talk 17:14, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, why don't we start a new theory where the Chiska (Peru) and a Lost Tribe of Israel, named after Jacob's grandson Naphtali, joined together and settled in the region now known as Nantahala and eventually became the Cherokee people but only those who followed Chief Dragging Canoe and became the Chickamauga Tribe carry the true bloodline. Oh yes and let's throw Vikings and outer-space alien lizard people in there somewhere because every theory needs a Viking lizard involved. Everything I just said is about as plausible as anything Talamachusee said who apparently doesn't require sources because, I mean, duh, he's above all of us as a direct descendant of this super race of Southern Mesoamerican-Panoans. --Tsistunagiska (talk) 20:43, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Location of Maniatique
While there is sufficient evidence that Pardo defeated the Chisca at a location with this name, no archaeologist or ethhistorian has ever suggested that Pardo went as far north as Saltville, Virginia, for Maniatique to have been located there, and this appears to be a local legend. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 21:51, 8 March 2009 (


 * FYI; Wikipedia guidelines stipulate either placing the tag or deleting the suspect information. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 21:58, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The burden is on you to substantiate your claim with a reliable cite. Per WP:V, we can't dismiss all the reliable sources definitively saying the Chiska village was at Saltville, based on just your say-so or original expertise that it is just "a local legend". What sources say this? Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 22:02, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You have not provided a single source to say that it is. Nothing written about Pardo's expeditions has ever suggested he made it as far north as Saltville. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 22:07, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Also, the burden of proof is on the person who wants the information to be included. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 22:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hudson certainly never said Pardo went that far north, and Swanton put all those towns much further south than Hudson. So, I ask again, what is your source that Maniatique was where Saltville, Virginia is now? Chuck Hamilton (talk) 22:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, ref and qualification. And something else for me to read. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 00:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Where did Swanton place that town? Maybe we should add his view too, for balance... Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 00:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't remember, but if he located it the same way he did the rest, it would have to be too far south and probably too far west. Chuck Hamilton (talk) 01:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

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Links to Robin A. Beck article
The journal article, "", was twice linked in this WP article to a (now defunct) blog (worldsedge dot net, last archived at the Internet Archive in February 2012) that apparently was hosting an unauthorized copy of the journal article. The blog had the following notice posted at the bottom of its home page: "The author of this site hereby request[sic] the permission of any person or organization for the dispaly of their copyrighted materials presented on this site. In the case where unauthorized copyrighted materials are presented, this is done through the claimed right of "fair use" authorized[sic] written refusal of permission for the presentation of some material so presented, with exact reason and proof of ownership will result in that material's immediate removal from the site."

I view this statement as evidence that the site was hosting material in violation of copyright, and therefore, the links to that site were in violation of the policy at Wikipedia:External links. I have therefore removed the links to the archived copy of that blog, and replaced them with a citation to the journal article through the Wikipedia Library. Donald Albury 18:50, 1 October 2022 (UTC)