In the traditional tribal name, Talligewi or Alligewi, wi is an assertive verbal suffix, so that the form properly means "he is a Tallige," or "they are Tallige." This comes very near to Tsa'lagi', the name by which the Cherokee call themselves, and it may have been an early corruption of that name. In Zeisberger's Delaware dictionary, however, we find waloh or walok, signifying a cave or hole, while in the "Walam Olum" we have oligonunk rendered "at the place of caves," the region being further described as a buffalo land on a pleasant plain, where the Lenape', advancing seaward from a less abundant northern region, at last found food (Walam Olum, pp. 194-195). Unfortunately, like other aboriginal productions of its kind among the northern tribes, the Lenape chronicle is suggestive rather than complete and connected. With more light it may be that seeming discrepancies would disappear and we should find at last that the Cherokee, in ancient times as in the historic period, were always the southern vanguard of the Iroquoian race, always primarily a mountain people, but with their flank resting upon the Ohio and its great tributaries, following the trend of the Blue ridge and the Cumberland as they slowly gave way before the pressure from the north until they were finally cut off from the parent stock by the wedge of Algonquian invasion, but always, whether in the north or in the south, keeping their distinctive title among the tribes as the "people of the cave country." As the Cherokee have occupied a prominent place in history for so long a period their name appears in many synonyms and diverse spellings. The following are among the principal of these: SYNONYMS