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Tamahita might be another name for Yuchi

Source: Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors #121

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After the above account had been prepared some material came under the eye of the writer tending to the conclusion that Tamahita must be added to that already long list of terms under which the Yuchi tribes appear in history. In view of the already formidable number of these Yuchi identifications—Hogologe, Tahogale, Chiska, Westo, Rickohockan—he would have preferred 'some other outcome, but we must be guided by facts and these facts point in one and the same direction.

The first significant circumstance is that, with one or two easily explained exceptions, wherever the name Tamahita or any of its synonyms is used none of the other terms bestowed upon the Yuchi occurs. This is true of the De Crenay map (pl. 5), of the French census of 1750,1 and of the list of tribes incorporated into the Creek confederacy given by Adair.2 The only exceptions are where different bands might be under consideration. Thus in the census of 1761 "Tomhetaws" are mentioned in connection with the Koasati living near the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, Alabama, while the Yuchi among the Lower Creeks and those which had formerly been on the Choctawhatchee are entered under their proper names.2 Romans, too, speaks of a town of "Euchas" among the Lower Creeks and in a different part of his work of a former tribe called "Tomeehetee" which gave its name to a bluff on the Tombigbee River.4 These exceptions, however, are not of much consequence.

In the second place the names of almost all of the other important Creek tribal subdivisions do occur alongside of the Tamahita. On the De Crenay map and in the French census of 1750 this tribe is located among the Lower Creeks, alongside of the Coweta, Kasihta, Apalachicola, Sawokli, Osochi, Eufaula, Okmulgee, Oconee, Hitchiti, Chiaha, and Tamali.5 Adair gives them as one of a number of  "broken tribes" said to have been incorporated with the Creeks proper, and he seems to have been familiar only with those living among the Upper Creeks, for the others mentioned in connection with them were all settled here, viz, Tuskegee, Okchai, Pakana, Witumpka, Shawnee, Natchez, and Koasati. As incorporated tribes among the Lower Creeks he notes the Osochi, Oconee, and Sawokli. In other places where Tamahita are mentioned among the Upper Creeks we find, in addition to the above, the Okchaiutci, Kan-tcati (Alabama), people of Coosa Old Town, and Muklasa, while the Tawasa are given in the census of 1750 and on the De Crenay map of 1733 as entirely distinct.5 Taking the Lower Creek towns by themselves we find all of the towns accounted for except the Yuchi towns and two or three which were located upon Chattahoochee River for a very brief period. These last were a Shawnee town, Tuskegee, Kolomi, Atasi, and perhaps Kealedji. The first two, however, occur independently in Adair's list, and the others are well-known Muskogee divisions which appear alongside of the Tamahita among the Upper Creeks. The Yamasee were also here for very brief periods but at a point much farther down the river than that where the Tamahita are placed.

Thirdly, Yuchi are known to have lived at or in the neighborhood of most of the places assigned to the Tamahita. The topography of the De Crenay map is too uncertain to enable us to base any conclusions upon it, but in the census of 1750 the Tamahita are given at approximately the same distance from Fort Toulouse as Coweta and Kasihta, and 3 leagues nearer than Chiaha, very close to the position which the (unnamed) Yuchi then occupied. As we shall see when we come to discuss the Yuchi as a whole, there was at least one band of Indians belonging to this tribe among the Upper Creeks, remnants apparently of the Choctawhatchee band. The Tamahita which figure in this section of the Creek country may, therefore, have been a part of these. I believe, however, that there was a second band of Yuchi here, which had had a somewhat different history. When we
come to discuss the Yuchi Indians we shall find that a section of these people, called generally Hogologe or Hog Logee, accompanied the Apalachicola Indians and part of the Shawnee to the Chattahoochee River about 1716. The Apalachicola were satisfied with this location, but some time later the Shawnee migrated to the Tallapoosa, and I think it probable that at least a part of the Hogologe Yuchi went with them. We know that relations between these two tribes must have been intimate for Bartram was led to believe that the Yuchi spoke "the Savanna or Savanuca tongue," and Speck testifies to cordial understandings between them extending down to the present time.1 But Hawkins gives us something more definite. In a diary which he kept during his travels through the Creek Nation in 1796 he states, under date of Monday, December 19, when he was following tho course of the Tallapoosa River toward its mouth and along its southern shore, "half a mile [beyond a large spring by the river bank is] the Uchee village, a remnant of those settled on the Chattahoochee; half a mile farther pass a Shawno village."2 In his Sketch, representing conditions a few years later, he says, in the course of his description of the same Shawnee village, "Some Uchees have settled with them," and there is every reason to believe that they were the Yuchi who had formerly occupied a town of their own half a mile away.2

Last of all, we must not lose sight of the fact that the origin of the Tamahita, like that of the Yuchi, may be traced far north to the Tennessee mountains. It seems rather improbable that a tribe from such a distant country could have settled among the Creeks and, after living in closest intimacy with them for so many years, have passed entirely out of existence without any further hint of their affiliations or any more information regarding them. And the fact that they and the Yuchi share so many points in common and appear in the same places, though practically never side by side, must be added to this as constituting strong circumstantial evidence that they were indeed one and the same people.
(Swanton)