Further evidence of an early habitation
of ancient Indians believed to be Talligewi was found in the lower Great Lakes
region of the United States comes from linguists who have discovered that the
Talligewi, Cherokee and Iroquoian languages are in some cases similar. As a
result of this discovery, many linguists now classify the Cherokees as a branch
of the Iroquoian family originating in the north. However, this theory has not
been adopted in total by anthropologists.
The late Frank G. Speck, for one theorized to the contrary that the Talligewi and possibly later on Cherokees originated in the Orinoco and Amazon River basins of South America.
He stated that he found that baskets woven in chain and diagonal patters and artwork by the Alligewi and South American tribes were made the same and with the same material.
Another authority, W.H. Holmes said that the art of the Talligewi and Cherokee said that pottery may have been made like that of Caribbean tribes by using primitive wooden paddles with designs on them and stamped their pottery while still wet. A couple designs, one of the ‘four directions’ and the design of ‘unity’ were exact to that of the Mayan and Caribbean tribes.
The Talligewi seemed to disappear from American history according to historians but some believe that they became the Cherokee who appeared shortly after the Talligewi disappeared.
Nor was it a civilization whose greatness or decline has, like the Romans, left its influence largely written on succeeding ages. It has vanished wholly; the Kentuckians of today owe nothing good or evil to its existence and have no link to connect them with its remains. Yet as this civilization existed on the same soil as we, it becomes the duty, if not the pleasure, of the historian of Kentucky to investigate the remains and describe, if he may, its history.
The late Frank G. Speck, for one theorized to the contrary that the Talligewi and possibly later on Cherokees originated in the Orinoco and Amazon River basins of South America.
He stated that he found that baskets woven in chain and diagonal patters and artwork by the Alligewi and South American tribes were made the same and with the same material.
Another authority, W.H. Holmes said that the art of the Talligewi and Cherokee said that pottery may have been made like that of Caribbean tribes by using primitive wooden paddles with designs on them and stamped their pottery while still wet. A couple designs, one of the ‘four directions’ and the design of ‘unity’ were exact to that of the Mayan and Caribbean tribes.
The Talligewi seemed to disappear from American history according to historians but some believe that they became the Cherokee who appeared shortly after the Talligewi disappeared.
Nor was it a civilization whose greatness or decline has, like the Romans, left its influence largely written on succeeding ages. It has vanished wholly; the Kentuckians of today owe nothing good or evil to its existence and have no link to connect them with its remains. Yet as this civilization existed on the same soil as we, it becomes the duty, if not the pleasure, of the historian of Kentucky to investigate the remains and describe, if he may, its history.