Francisco de Chicora was apparently from a Catawban group, based on analysis of the account by Peter Martyr, court chronicler, by the twentieth-century American ethnographer John R. Swanton.
Researchers have worked to identify the provinces and tribes described by Chicora.
They have analyzed phonetics of sixteenth-century Spanish, as well as the many languages of the North American tribes in the area, to reach their conclusions.
Francisco's home province, considered by Swanton to be on the lower Pee Dee River, is called Chicora.
Scholars generally consider the people a Catawban group.
Swanton (1940) proposed a connection with the Sugaree or Shakori; Rudes (2004) suggested Coree.
Although little is known about the Shakori, at the time of contact, they are not noted as being noticeably different from the surrounding tribes.
They make their wigwams and other structures out of interwoven saplings and sticks; these are covered in mud as opposed to the bark typically used by other nearby tribes.
They will later be described as being similar to traditional dwellings of the Quapaw from Arkansas.
In the center of the village, men often play a slinging stone game, probably similar to the chunkey played by tribes further south and west.
The Shakori are associated with other Siouan tribes of the Piedmont, such as the Sissipahaw and Eno, and they all are believed to have spoken the same Siouan language.
Scholars debate whether the Shakori, Eno, and Sissipahaw were different tribes or bands of the same tribe.
This distinction will become moot as the tribes merge with one another as their numbers decrease.
Chicora is evidently one of several Carolina Siouan-speaking territories subject to their king, Datha of Duahe (also recorded in Spanish as Duarhe).
