The âpéCherokees were called by the Delawares _Kittuwa_ (_Kuttoowauw_, in the spelling of the native Aupaumut). This word I suppose to be derived from the prefix, _kit_, great, and the root _tawa_ (Cree, _yette_, _tawa_), to open, whence tawatawik, an open, _i.e._, uninhabited place, a wilderness (Zeisberger).
The designation is geographical. According to the tradition of the Cherokees, they once lived (probably about the fourteenth century) in the Ohio Valley, and claimed to have been the constructors of the Grave Creek and other earthworks there.[12] Some support is given to this claim by the recent linguistic investigations of Mr. Horatio Hale,[13] and the archaeological researches of Prof. Cyrus Thomas.[14] They were driven southward by their warlike neighbors, locating their council fire first near Monticello, Va., and the main body reaching East Tennessee about the close of the fifteenth century. As late as 1730 some of them continued to live east of the Alleghanies, while, on the other hand, it is evident, from the proper names preserved by the chroniclers of De Soto's expedition (1542), that at that period others held the mountains of Northern Georgia. To the Delawares they remained _kit-tawa-wi_, inhabitants of the great wilderness of Southern Ohio and Kentucky.
Delaware traditions distinctly recalled the period when portions of the Cherokees were on the Ohio, and recounted long wars with them.[15] When the Lenape assumed the office of peacemaker, this feud ceased, and was not renewed until the general turmoil of the French-Indian wars, 1750-60. After this closed, in 1768, the Cherokees sought and effected a renewal of their peaceful relations with the Delawares, and in 1779 they even sent a deputation of "condolence" to their "grandfather," the Lenape, on the death of the head chief, White Eyes.[16]
[1] Lewis H. Morgan, _Indian Migrations_, in Beach's _Indian Miscellany_, p. 218.
[2] H. Hale, _Indian Migrations as Evidenced by Language_, p. 24. (Chicago, 1883.)
[3] See the R. P. A. Lacombe _Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris. Introd._, p. xi. (Montreal, 1874.)
[4] See Joseph Howse, _A grammar of the Cree Language_, p. 13, et al. (London, 1842)
[5] In a note to Mr. Gowan's edition of George Alsop's _Province of Maryland_, pp. 117-121 (New York, 1869); also, in 1858, in an article "On the Identity of the Adastas, Minquas, Susquehannocks, and Conestogas," in the _Amer. Hist. Mag._, Vol. II, p. 294.