They spoke a dialect of the Siouan Tutelo language thought to be similar to that of their neighbors, the Monacan and Manahoac nations.

Under pressure from English settlers and Seneca Iroquois, they joined with other Virginia Siouan tribes in the late 17th century and became collectively known as the Nahyssan.

The Tutelo autonym (name for themselves) was Yesañ, Yesáh, Yesáng, Yesą, Yesan, Yesah, or Yesang.

[4] Corn would have been a fairly recent arrival to their home region at the time of contact and they probably did not come to Virginia with it, as they may have with other seed varieties.

After 1714, the Saponi and Tutelo, collectively known as a Nahyssan, resided at Junkatapurse around Fort Christanna in Brunswick County, Virginia, near the border with North Carolina.

[2] The Tutelo village of Coreorgonel was located near present-day Ithaca, New York and Buttermilk Falls State Park.

[8] There they lived under the protection of the Cayuga until Coreorgonel, along with many other Iroquois towns, was destroyed during the American Revolutionary War by the Sullivan Expedition of 1779.

Their village was attacked during the Sullivan Expedition, an American operation to destroy the pro-British elements of the Six Nations in New York.

John Key, also known as Gostango (meaning "Below the Rock") and Nastabon ("One Step") survived Nikonha as the last recorded fluent speaker of the Tutelo language.

He recounted Tutelo stories to American ethnologists John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt and Frank Speck.