Rafinesque,âpé in the MS. of the Walum Olum, gives Talligewi the translation "there found," from _talli_, there, and I know not what word for "found."
There have not been wanting those who would derive the name Alleghany from Iroquois roots, as the Seneca _De-o-na-ga-no_, "cold water" (_Amer. Hist. Mag._ Vol. IV, p. 184). But there is no probability that the word is Iroquois.
Whatever its origin, the name was not confined to the Alleghany river, but included the whole of the Upper Ohio, as the interpreter Post distinctly says.
The Rev. Mr. Heckewelder was of opinion that _Talligewi_ was a word foreign to the Algonkin, a _nomen gentile_ of another tribe, adopted by the Delawares, just as they adopted _Mengwe_ for the Iroquois from the Onondaga _Yenkwe_, men (see above, page 14). It is not necessarily connected with Alleghany, which may be pure Algonkin. He says, "Those people called themselves _Talligeu_ or _Talligewi_." (_Indian Nations_ p. 48.) The accent, as he gives it, _Tallige'wi_, shows that the word is, _Talliké_, with the substantive verb termination, so that _Talligewi_ means, "He is a _Talliké_" or, "It is of (belongs to) the Talliké."
This appears to me the most probable supposition of any I have quoted, and it reduces our quest to that of a nation who called themselves by a name which, to Lenape ears, would sound like _Talliké_. Such a nation presents itself at once in the Cherokees, who call themselves _Tsa'laki_. Moreover, they fill the requirements in other particulars. Their ancient traditions assign them a residence precisely where the Delaware legends locate the Tallike, to wit, on the upper waters of the Ohio (see above, page 17). Fragments of them continued there until within the historic period, and the persistent hostility between them and the Delawares points to some ancient and important contest.
Name, location and legends, therefore, combine to identify the Cherokees or Tsalaki with the Tallike, and this is as much evidence as we can expect to produce in such researches. I can see no reason whatever for Dr. Shea's opinion that the Lenape "in their progress eastward drove out of Ohio the Quappas, called by the Algonkins, Alkanzas or Alligewi, who retreated down the Ohio and Mississippi." (Shea, Notes to Alsop's _Maryland_, p. 118.)