Indian Legends of Yellow Hair: King of the Ohio Mound Builders

Shawnee Indian legend tells of a strange white race that were the mound builders who were led by a great chief they call Yellow Hair

  

More on Indian legends of Celtic mound builderswww.nephilimgiants.net : Native American Legends of Celtic Mound Builders in the Ohio Valley. 

     A tall Chief with yellow hair ruled over them and for ages, they fought off the red men and held the fisheries of the falls and the hunting grounds for their own. The sun was the god they worshiped, and he appeared to have blessed them with peace and plenty. Yellow Hair our people called the Chief, who was a giant. The Chiefs or Kings must have maintained the great stature by intermarrying in the royal family, probably killing all the females except just enough to perpetuate, the race. 

   But our people had long viewed the land from afar and they determined to possess it. The Chief at that time was Hawk Wing, the line through which I come. He sent spies to make overtures to the strange white people and they visited Yellow Hair and told him the Shawnees wanted to share with them the fisheries and the hunting grounds.
    Yellow Hair listened to their statements and then told them that there was just enough for the white people and that he and his people preferred to live by themselves. Then the Ambassadors of the Shawnees said that if the white people would not submit peacefully to having them as neighbors, they would slay them and take their possessions.

 

Kanawha Valley "Occupied by a Fierce Race of White Warriors" According to the Shawnee Indians: Deny Building the Mounds and Earthworks.

A persistent legend exists among the Shawnee Indians in West Virginia that it was once inhabited by a white skinned people in prehistoric times who were eventually vanquished by the Indians.  A giant is uncovered in a West Virginia burial mound by a noted archaeologist www.nephilimgiants.net : Noted Archaeologists Measures West Virginia Skeleton at 7 feet, 2 inches.

Fayette County, West Virginia History 1888

     The late Dr. Buster who was among the first white residents of the Kanawha valley, resided at the foot of this mountain, (mountain dividing the waters of Loup and Armstrong Creek), on the south bank of this river, during a long and active life. No white man had ever occupied the ground upon which his father built his cabin, according to record; and the history of the pale face here, is absolutely complete within this family. Paddy Huddleton, probably the first white settler within the limits of Fayette County, lived just up and from his house Daniel Boone had trapped beaver. In my last interview, about 1877, though a very old man, his mind and body were still active and vigorous. He remembered talking to the Indian 'medicine men' in his boyhood, as they frequently passed up the river, and discussed this wall and numerous relics of bones, stone implements and pottery found all over the surrounding bottom lands. 

Parts of the stone wall that included stone towers are still visible above Loup and Amstrong Creek in West Virginia.  

      According to his statements the Indians knew of these monuments, but claimed no part in them. One of their legends sets forth the fact that the Kanawha Valley had been occupied by a fierce race of white warriors, who successfully resisted the approach of the 'red man' from the west for a long time, but had finally succumbed, and passed away in death. The Indians claimed never to have occupied the valley, except for hunting expeditions; that they found these relics old when they first entered; and that their origin was beyond record.

 Shawnee Indians Claim the Serpent Mound as Their Own, Despite Their Ancient Chiefs Saying the Mounds Were There When They Arrived

Historic chiefs of the Shawnee, Sac and other Algonquins were quoted as knowing nothing about the mounds except they were built by an earlier people, and they were not the builders of the mounds or earthworks.  Iroquois Chief, Joseph Brant also claimed that the burial mounds were there when they arrived and were built by an earlier people. www.nephilimgiants.net : Chief Joseph Brant Claims Ohio Mounds Built by a "Long gone by, there came white men from a Foreign Country"

  "He was told by the Indian Chief Cornstalk, with whom he had frequent conversations, that Ohio and Kentucky (and Tennessee also is associated with Kentucky in prehistoric ethnography by Rafinesque) had once been settled by white people who were familiar with arts of which the Indians knew nothing; that these whites, after a series of bloody contest with the Indians, had been exterminated; that the old burial places were the graves of an unknown people; and that the old forts had not been built by Indians, but had come down from ' a very long ago' people, who were of a white complexion and skilled in the arts." More legends that the Native Americans were not the mound builders www.nephilimgiants.net : Shawnee Legends Say They Went to Sandy Island and Slaughtered the White Indian Mound Builders.

 Shawnee Indian Legends: Killing the Ohio Mound Builders of White Complexion

Shawnee legend of killing the mound builders' giant race in Ohio . The Cherokee Indians also had legends of a white race of mound builders  www.nephilimgiants.net : Cherokee Legends of White Race of Mound Builders 

Prehistoric Men of Kentucky, 1910

  "He was told by the Indian Chief Cornstalk, with whom he had frequent conversations, that Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee had once been settled by white people who were familiar with arts of which the Indians knew nothing; that these whites, after a series of bloody contest with the Indians, had been exterminated.

   In another interview he reiterated the same story. "That the old burial places were the graves of an unknown people; and that the old forts had Not been built by Indians but had come down from ' a very long ago' people, who were of a white complexion and skilled in the arts.".

Shawnee Legend of a Giant Chief with Yellow Hair That Ruled Over the Ohio Mound Builders

 

Shawnee Indian Curse of Yellow Hair

Indian legends of the giant king of the mound builders Yellow Hair www.nephilimgiants.net : Indian Legends of Yellow Hair: King of the Mound Builders

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Oct 12, 1912

    “When I was a wee bit of a girl,” said Mrs. Kelly, “my mother sang me to sleep with the words of this song. It was a sort of a chant in the Indian tongue, and I do not remember it all. Translated so you will understand it, it was to the effect that white people lived here on the falls and that they were mighty. A tall Chief with yellow hair ruled over them and for ages they fought off the red men and held the fisheries of the falls and the hunting grounds for their own. The sun was the god they worshiped, and he appeared to have blessed them with peace and plenty. Yellow Hair our people called the Chief, who was a giant. The Chiefs or Kings must have maintained the great stature by intermarrying in the royal family, probably killing all the females except just enough to perpetuate, the race. My mother thought they saved the best developed girls for the wives of the Chief in order to perpetuate the governing race. I did not ask her why she formed this opinion, and it may have been part of the legend. But our people had long viewed the land from afar and they determined to possess it. The Chief at that time was Hawk Wing, the line through which I come. He sent spies to make overtures to the strange white people and they visited Yellow Hair and told him the Shawnees wanted to share with them the fisheries and the hunting grounds. Yellow Hair listened to their statements and then told them that there was just enough for the white people and that he and his people preferred to live by themselves. Then the Ambassadors of the Shawnees said that if the white people would not submit peacefully to having then for neighbors, they would slay them and take their possessions. At this Yellow Hair laughed disdainfully and said the sun god would destroy his enemies with fire from heaven and that every man who took part in such a bloody and unprovoked massacre would die a violent death and that the curse would have the effect as long as one of the offending race remained on earth.