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the Conchattas, who came from the Creek country; the Taensas, who, though originally living on the west bank of the Mississippi, had in Du Pratz's time removed to the vicinity of the Mobile, whence they have again migrated to Red River; the Humas, the Tunicas, the Boluxas, and the Pascagoulas already mentioned, and the Pacanas said to have come from West Florida. Dr. Sibley asserts that each of these four last-mentioned tribes has a distinct language of its own.

The second class consists of the following tribes, to wit:

1. The Caddoes or Caddokies, who formerly lived three hundred miles up Red River on a prairie near an eminence, on which they say, that, after all the world had been drowned by a flood, the Great Spirit placed one family of Caddoes from which all the Indians have originated. They have now removed to a branch of Red River about one hundred and twenty miles above Natchitoches. Though much diminished in number by the small-pox and by their wars with the Osages, and reduced to about one hundred warriors, they are held in great consideration by all the neighbouring tribes. Amongst these, the Nandakoes, the Inies or Tachies, who have given their name to the province of Texas, and the Nabedaches, amounting together to about two hundred warriors, speak dialects of the Caddo language.

2. The Natchitoches and the Yatassees, living fifty miles above Natchitoches, amounting together to one hundred souls, and speaking the same language, said by Dr. Sibley to be different from any other.

3. The Adaize, living between the Natchitoches and the Yatassees, reduced to fifty souls, speak a language totally distinct from any other known to us.

4. The Appelousas, in the district of that name, reduced to forty men, said by Dr. Sibley to speak a distinct language.

5. The Attacapas ("Men-eaters"), reduced to fifty men, said to have been formerly cannibals, speak a distinct language, which according to Dr. Sibley is also spoken by another tribe near the seashore, called Carankouas, but who probably are without the boundaries of the United States.

6. The Chactoos, living on Bayou Boeuf, estimated at thirty men, and having also, according to Dr. Sibley, a distinct language.

7. The Panis or Towiaches, on Red River, near the western boundary of the United States, and having two

corn.

villages called Nitehata and Towahach, where they cultivate The Tawakenoes, who live two hundred miles west of Nacogdoches, south of Red River, are said by Dr. Sibley to speak the same language. This, from the similarity of name, has been presumed to be a dialect of the Pawnees, of the Arkansa. At the time of Major Long's first expedition, they had been driven from their villages by the Osages; but they have probably returned, and are the same nation with those Indians who have now villages on the north of Red River and are designated by the name of Towecas and Wachos, in a treaty lately concluded with several western tribes. Beyond the Panis, there are none but erratic tribes who do not cultivate any thing.

To this enumeration we must add, though not mentioned by Dr. Sibley,

8. The Chitimachas, formerly living in the vicinity of Lake Barataria, and still existing in Lower Louisiana.

Among the various small tribes, the following have Choctaw names, to wit, the Pascagoulas, "Bread nation," from Paska, bread," and ogoulas, corrupted from okla, "nation, people "; the Aqueloupissas, "who hear and see," from hoklo, "to hear," and pissa, "to see"; Oumas, "Red people," from humma, "red"; Oqueloussas, from oka, "water, and lusa, "black"; to which we might add one of the small Yazoo tribes, mentioned by Du Pratz by the name of Oufe Ogoulas, or "Dog nation," from oufe, "dog."

This however alone is not sufficient to prove that those small tribes were Choctaws or spoke dialects of that language, unless the names by which they are known to us were those by which they called themselves. The first settlement of the French was on Mobile River, and the first tribe near the mouth of that river with which they came in contact, was called Mobilian and spoke Choctaw. Hence they designated that language by the name of Mobilian, and on account of its great extent it was called the common or vulgar tongue.* In the same manner as, in the north, we call to this day two Sioux tribes, who speak languages altogether different from the Algonkin, by the Algonkin names of Winnebagoes and Assiniboins, which they do not recognise as their own. The French were in the habit of designating nations and objects not belonging to

Du Pratz.

the Choctaws, by the names which that people had imposed on them. Of this we have at least two instances in point. The name of Achafalaya, the principal western outlet of the Mississippi, is pure Choctaw, meaning "the long river," from hucha," river," and falaya, "long."* And the name of the Attacapas, "Men-eaters," whose language, as appears by their vocabulary, is totally different from the Choctaw, is that which had been given to them by this nation, derived from hottok, “a person," and uppa, "to eat." As, with the exception of the Natches, we have no vocabularies of any of the smaller tribes originally living on the east side of the Mississippi which were contiguous to the Choctaws, the presumed identity of language remains uncertain. It will be perceived by Dr. Sibley's account, that six of these are still existing, to wit, the Taensas, the Humas, the Boluxas, the Pacanas, the Tunicas, and the Pascagoulas; the four last of which he asserts to have distinct languages from the Mobilian or Choctaw.

With respect to the tribes, natives of the western side of the Mississippi, exclusively of the Panis, who live beyond the boundaries of the State of Louisiana, Dr. Sibley states that they speak six distinct languages, to which must be added that of the Chitimachas not mentioned by him. We have vocabularies of four of these, viz., of the Attacapas and of the Chitimachas, taken by Mr. Duralde and by him transmitted to Mr. Jefferson; and of the Adaize, and of the Caddoes, transmitted by Dr. Sibley to Mr. Duponceau. We have made but partial use of the last, having received one much more copious from Mr. George Gray, the Indian Agent. The three still wanted are those of the Natchitoches, of the Opelousas, and of the Chactoos. The four which have been obtained, fully justify Dr. Sibley's assertion; each of those tribes speaks a distinct language and different from any other known to us. It appears also by a letter from Dr. Sibley to Mr. Duponceau, at the time when he transmitted the Adaize and Caddo vocabularies, that he had actually obtained those of some of the other tribes, to the peculiarities of which he alludes. These have not been received.

From the Arctic Sea to the fifty-second degree of north

There are two Choctaw words for river viz. hucha, of the same origin with the Muskhogee hatchee, and okhina, probably "watercourse."

latitude, across the continent of America from the Atlantic almost to the Pacific, we have not found more than two great families of languages, the Eskimaux and the Athapascas.

South of these, as far as the thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth degree of latitude, two other families, the Algonkin-Lenape and Iroquois, filled the whole space between the Atlantic and the Mississippi or the meridian which passes by its sources. Another great family, that of the Sioux, extends equally far from north to south, on the west side of the Mississippi. With the exception of a doubtful tribe (the Loucheux), there is not to be found, in the extensive territory occupied by those five families, a single tribe or remnant of a tribe, that speaks a dialect, which does not belong to one or another of those five families.

On the contrary, in the comparatively small territory south of the Lenape and Iroquois tribes, and including that portion of the State of Louisiana which lies west of the Mississippi, we find, allowing even the Muskhogee and Choctaw to be but one, three extensive languages, the Catawba, the Cherokee, and the Choctaw Muskhogee, and six well ascertained of small tribes or remnants of tribes, to wit, the Uchee, the Natches, and the four abovementioned west of the Mississippi. And there is a strong probability that, independently of the several small extinct tribes of Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, which still existed when those countries were first settled, several of those still existing west of the Mississippi will be found to have distinct languages. It also appears by the statements of their respective population, communicated by Dr. Sibley, and which is indeed notorious, that those small tribes preserve their language to the last moment of their existence.*

The most powerful southern nations appear to have been, upon the whole, less exterminating than the northern Indians. It is also probable that the impenetrable swamps and the multiplied channels or bayoux by which the delta of the Mississippi and the Red River country are intersected, have afforded places of refuge to the remnants of conquered tribes.

The same observation applies generally to all the Indian tribes. Instances have been mentioned in speaking of the Nanticokes, the Nottoways, and the Long Island Indians.

SECTION IV.

INDIANS BETWEEN THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE PACIFIC

OCEAN.

THE Indians under this head are divided into two great sections by the Rocky Mountains.

Those east of the mountains are the Sioux; the Pawnees; the Fall, Rapid, or Paunch Indians; the Black Feet, and some other erratic tribes, not so well known, and which may be embraced under the general though obsolete denomination of Padoucas. Some bands of Snake Indians or Shoshonees, living on the waters of the river Columbia, and of Hietans or Camanches, whose principal residence is south of Red River and of the southern boundary of the United States, are also occasionally found, either towards the sources of the tributary streams of the Missouri, or north of Red River. As the Winnebagoes, whose seats are near Lake Michigan, speak a dialect of the Sioux language, we have also included them under this head.

The nations which speak the Sioux language may be considered, in reference both to their respective dialects and to their geographical position, as consisting of four subdivisions, viz. the Winnebagoes; the Sioux proper and the Assiniboins; the Minetare group; and the Osages and other southern kindred tribes.

The Winnebagoes, so called by the Algonkins, but called Puans and also Otchagras by the French, and Horoje ("Fisheaters") by the Omahaws and other southern tribes, call themselves Hochungohrah, or the " Trout" nation. The Green Bay of Lake Michigan derives its French name from theirs. (Baye des Puans). It is not known at what time they separated from the Sioux people; but it must have been prior to the settlements of the French in Canada. Champlain, in the map annexed to his Travels, has given an erroneous position to Lake Michigan, which he knew only from Indian information; but he calls it "Lac des Puans." They are first mentioned by Father Allouez in the Relation of the year 1669, at which time they occupied nearly the same territory as at present. He says, that they had been nearly destroyed thirty years before by the

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