the filson club history quarterly - The Filson Historical Society

208 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 29
They often flattened heads by pressure of the cradle-board. The
Spaniards accused them of cannibalism which should not be hastily
denied when it is remembered that the cultured Aztecs ate human
flesh. But no one else accuses them.
They had achieved many subjective victories over their objective resources;
but had reached a time when they needed a messiah to lead them
spiritually out of shamanism and fear of fl e mysteries of the world
around them; to teach them the superiority of the subjective; that
dancing and singing are not purification; that sacrifices do not appease
the gods; that tom-toms do not driye out devils; that the adoration of
objective things is fruitless. They had evolved as far as they could,
they next needed a mutation; but what they did get will now be told.
CHISCA
One July day in 1540, an Indian chief in northern Alabama told
De Soto about a land to the north called Chisca, whose people were
rich. De Soto, one of Pizarro's palladins in Peru, eager to find
another golden empire, sent two soldiers to spy out that Land of Chisca.
They traveled up the Tennessee River in canoes, crossed the high
ranges through Cumberland Gap, and marched northward along the
Traders' or Warriors' Path to Chisca. After twenty-eight days they
returned and reported the country between so scant of maize and with
such high and rough mountains it was impassible for the army; and
described Chisca as "a poor, little town where there was nothing of
value."
On Wyffliet's map of 1597 Chisca is located south of the big
northern bend of the Ohio, in the present Kentucky Bluegrass. On
Franc[uelin's map of 1684 Chisca is more exactly located. A stream
runs into the Ohio above the Kentucky named "Skippakicipe ou la
Riveire Bleue" (our Licking); to the northeast of it is "Chaskepe,"
which means Chisca-people; and between the Licking and a stream
running into the Kentucky from the north, which the map names
"Misseouiecipi" (our Red River), is Chisca.
Today Chisca's visible remains are a mound and a circle on the
farm of Mr. and Mrs. W. D. Clark, at Indian Fields in Clark County,
Kentucky. A larger circle and other mounds disappeared a century
or more ago. "This was De Soto's farthest point north?
THE WARRIORS' PATH
In 1670 John Lederer, a German traveling in western Virginia and
Carolina, was told by Occaneechee (Akenadzy) Indians about Zynoda,
a great gap in the western mountains. They had come through it in