townships and together composed the supreme council. In them was lodged
the temporal power. Spiritual authority was of a far more despotic form
and character. It was vested in one person, styled the Beloved man or
woman of the tribe, who, over a people so superstitious as the
Cherokees, held a control that was wellnigh absolute. This person was
generally of superior intelligence, who, like the famous Prophet of the
Shawnees, officiated as physician, prophet, and intercessor with the
invisible powers; and, by virtue of the supernatural authority which he
claimed, he often by a single word decided the most important questions,
even when opposed by the king and the principal chiefs.

Echota was located on the northern bank of the Tellico, about five miles
from the ruins of Fort Loudon, and thirty southwest from the present
city of Knoxville. It was the Cherokee City of Refuge. Once within its
bounds, an open foe, or even a red-handed criminal, could dwell in peace
and security. The danger to an enemy was in going and returning. It is
related that an Englishman who, in self-defence, once slew a Cherokee,
fled to this sacred city to escape the vengeance of the kindred of his
victim. He was treated here with such kindness that after a time he
thought it safe to leave his asylum. The Indians warned him against the
danger, but he left, and on the following morning his body was found on
the outskirts of the town, pierced through and through with a score of
arrows.

About two hundred cabins and wigwams, scattered, with some order but at
wide intervals, along the bank of the river, composed the village. The
cabins, like those of the white settlers, were square and built of logs;
the wigwams were conical, with a frame of slender poles gathered
together at the top and covered with buffalo-robes, dressed and smoked
to render them impervious to the weather. An opening at the side formed