Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of

Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of

by John R. Swanton
Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of

Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of

by John R. Swanton

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Overview

Concentrating primarily on the Natchez Indians, but also profiling the Muskhogean tribes, the Tunican group, the Chitimacha, and the Atakapa, the comprehensive study describes each tribe's material culture, religion, language and social organization, with engrossing accounts of practices related to war, marriage, medicine, hunting, feasts, funeral ceremonies, and other customs.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780486148083
Publisher: Dover Publications
Publication date: 01/23/2013
Series: Native American
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 448
File size: 10 MB

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Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico


By John R. Swanton

Dover Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 1998 Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14808-3



CHAPTER 1

CLASSIFICATION OF THE TRIBES


The tribes treated in this bulletin, which at the present time are almost extinct, formerly occupied the banks of the Mississippi river and its tributaries from about the neighborhood of the northern boundary of the present State of Louisiana to the Gulf of Mexico and the shores of the gulf for some distance east and west. The region and its ancient occupants as they appear to have been distributed at the beginning of the eighteenth century are shown in accompanying map (pl. 1). Northwest of it, in the area colored yellow, were peoples belonging to the Caddoan linguistic stock, of which the nearest were the Washita of Washita river, and the Natchitoches and Doustiony (or Souchitiony) in the neighborhood of modern Natchitoches, while farther off were the Adai, Yatasi, Nakasa, Caddo, and Cahinnio. None of these falls within the limits of the present discussion. Following around to the eastward we find the Siouan stock (colored red), the greater part of which lay next north of the Mississippi tribes under consideration, and extended in an unbroken mass northward nearly to the Saskatchewan river. The nearest tribe in this direction was the Quapaw at the junction of the Mississippi and the Arkansas, but two detached bands, the Ofo, or, as they are more commonly called, Ofogoula, on the lower Yazoo, and the Biloxi of lower Pascagoula river, were within it. Vocabularies proving Siouan relationship have been obtained from both, and as historical accounts of the two tribes will be prefixed to the published linguistic material they will be passed over in the present paper. The Muskhogean linguistic stock, indicated in light green, is the most important large stock with which we have to deal. Roughly speaking, it extended from the Mississippi river to the Savannah river and the Atlantic ocean, while on the south it reached the gulf of Mexico except where interrupted by the Biloxi above referred to and the Timucua of Florida. The tribes composing it form two separate groups or substocks, the Muskhogean proper and the Natchez group, of which the latter falls entirely within the province of our discussion, while of the former only some smaller and comparatively insignificant divisions concern us. The large and powerful tribes which have played an important part in history and many of which continue to play it require independent treatment. These are the Yamasi of the Georgia coast, the Apalachi, on Apalachee bay between Apalachicola and Ocilla rivers, the Creeks—in reality a confederacy of tribes—of the Chattahoochee, Flint, Alabama, Tallapoosa, and Coosa rivers, the Chickasaw of northern Mississippi and western Tennessee, and the Choctaw of southern Mississippi and southwestern Alabama.

Although they lie outside the area of which it is proposed to treat at length, it will be convenient to include in this chapter a consideration of the coast tribes between Pascagoula and Apalachicola rivers, embracing the Mobile, Tohome, Naniaba, Pensacola, Chatot, Tawasa, and some small bands associated with the two last. Westward one of the cultural areas with which we deal extended not only to the Rio Grande, but into the Mexican State of Tamaulipas as well, until it reached the Huastec of Panuco, the northernmost representatives of the Mayan linguistic family. So far as is known, however, the tribes of southern Texas are utterly extirpated. Twenty years ago two small bands existed near Camargo, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, but it is doubtful whether even their language is retained at the present time; while all the manuscript information obtainable is now being made the subject of a special investigation by Dr. H. E. Bolton, of the University of Texas. We shall therefore draw a somewhat arbitrary line of demarcation in this direction at the Sabine river, or at most near Galveston bay and Trinity river, where the Atakapa stock appears to have terminated.

Within the region thus outlined the number and names of the tribes which history reveals to us seem very definite and well established. Leaving aside words which are evidently distorted forms of the names of well-known peoples, there are very few tribes referred to so seldom that their independent existence is in doubt. On the basis of language, the most convenient method of classification, five groups may be distinguished which, with the tribes belonging under each, are as follows :

(1) Natchez group, including the Natchez, Taënsa, and A voyel.

(2) Muskhogean group, including the Washa, Chawasha, Okelousa, Quinipissa (or Mugulasha), Tangipahoa, Bayogoula, Acolapissa, Chakchiuma, Houma, Taposa, Ibitoupa, Pascagoula, Mobile, Tohome, Naniaba (or Gens des Fourches), Pensacola, Chatot, Tawasa, and the allies of the two last.

(3) Tunican group, including the Tunica, Koroa, Yazoo, Tioux, and Grigra.

(4) Chitimachan group, including only the Chitimacha.

(5) Atakapan group, including the Atakapa, Akokisa, Opelousa, and perhaps Bidai and a few other tribes of which we have little more than the names.


As stated above, the first and second of these are known to be related, and it may be added that relationship probably exists between the fourth and fifth, with which the Tunican group also shows certain points of resemblance, while they are perhaps responsible for the non-Muskhogean element in Natchez.

This classification is not final, and rests in part on circumstantial evidence only; therefore it will be proper for the writer to give his reason for placing each tribe in the group assigned to it. It should be understood that the only ones among them from which we have vocabularies approaching completeness are the Natchez, Tunica, Chitimacha, and Atalcapa. In 1907 the writer collected about eighty words from an old Houma woman, and a few words are to be found in the writings of French authors and elsewhere. The language of the remainder can be determined only by means of statements of early travelers and scanty bits of circumstantial evidence.

The relationship of Taënsa to Natchez was affirmed by all French writers who speak of their language, and no question would probably have been raised regarding it had it not been singled out about thirty years ago by an ambitious French youth as an occasion for putting forth a fraudulent grammar and dictionary. The story of this fraud and the controversy to which it gave rise is as follows:

At the commencement of the year 1880 the publishing house of Maisonneuve et Cie. received by mail a manuscript of six leaves entitled Fragments de Littérature Tansa, sent by M. J. Parisot, rue Stanislas, 37, at Plombières (Vosges). This manuscript was transmitted with a request to utilize it for the Revue de Linguistique. It was accordingly submitted to Prof. Julien Vinson, one of the editors of that publication, who wrote M. Parisot for further particulars regarding it and received a reply at some length in which the latter explained how the manuscript had come into his possession.

The appearance of these Fragments, under the title Notes sur la Langue des Taensas, was followed in 1881 by seven supposed Taënsa songs in the original, unaccompanied by translations, printed at Epinal under the title Cancionero Americano. A preface in Spanish was inserted, however, in which it was claimed that the texts had been collected in 1827 or 1828. This did not bear M. Parisot's name, but on writing to the publisher M. Adam, who had received a copy of the work, was referred to Parisot, pupil of the "Grand Séminaire de Saint-Dié." M. Adam then wrote to M. Ch. Leclerc, of the Maisonneuve publishing house, and by his advice on the 8th of May, 1882, he asked M. Parisot for the manuscripts in order to publish them in the Bibliothèque Linguistique Américaine. M. Parisot, then aged 19 or 20, came to see M. Adam at Nancy in the course of the following July; in October he sent him the manuscript of the grammar and the printing began.

The article in the Revue and the pamphlet published at Épinal excited only local interest, but the grammar was widely circulated and was acclaimed as a notable addition to our literature on the subject of Indian languages. The fact that Dr. A. S. Gatschet, a leading student of American languages, furnished an introduction rendered its acceptance all the more ready. In his work on Aboriginal American Authors, published the following year, Brinton speaks appreciatively of it and quotes one of the songs entire. In commenting on these songs he says: "Some of the songs of war and death are quite Ossianic in style, and yet they appear to be accurate translations. The comparatively elevated style of such poems need not cast doubt upon them" (pp. 48, 49). The comparison with Ossian was perhaps more significant than the commentator at that time realized, though even then he admitted that the Taënsa songs were unusual.

It was probably not long after this that the noted ethnologist began to change his mind regarding them, but it was not until March, 1885, that he came out against them with the direct charge of forgery. His article appeared in the American Antiquarian for that month and was entitled "The Taënsa grammar and dictionary; a deception exposed." This attack bore so heavily against the part of the compilation which embraced the Taënsa songs that Adam made no attempt to defend them, but in the three successive brochures which he issued in reply tried to prove that all of the material, especially the grammatical sections, had not been forged. These brochures were entitled Le taensa a-t-il été forgé de toutes pieces? Réponse à M. Daniel Brinton; Le taensa n'a pas été forgé de toutes pièces, lettre de M. Friedrich Müller à Lucien Adam; Dom Parisot ne Produira pas le Manuscrit Taensa, lettre à M. Victor Henry. These brought an answer from Brinton in the American Antiquarian for September, and in November of that year the whole controversy to date was noticed at length in The Kansas City Review (vol. IX, no. 4, pp. 253–254). The most thorough history of the case, however, embracing the earlier chapters, that had hardly been touched upon so far, was written by Prof. Julien Vinson under the title La Langue Taensa, in January, 1886, and published in the April issue of the Revue de Linguistique et de Philologie Comparée. Although he had first introduced Parisot to the public and was largely responsible for the publication of the grammar by Adam, Vinson now sided with Brinton, at least in the belief that the authenticity of the work had not yet been established. The Revue for January, 1888, contains a letter from Doctor Brinton, entitled Linguistique Américaine, in which he refers to several differences of opinion between himself and Doctor Gatschet, and closes with another reference to the Taënsa apropos of the introduction furnished by the latter gentleman. This brought out a Réplique from the noted philologist, in which he for the first time enters the Taënsa controversy in person, and a counter rejoinder in the October issue. The whole question was reviewed once more by Brinton in a special chapter in his Essays of an Americanist (pp. 452–467, 1890), and here the active controversy practically ended, apparently with neither side convinced. So much doubt was thrown upon the new material, however, that in making up his linguistic map of North America north of Mexico Powell excluded it from consideration, and it is probably regarded as fraudulent by most prominent ethnologists. At the same time, until very recently sufficient evidence had not been brought forward to absolutely discredit the grammar of Parisot and remove it from the category of possibilities. In determining the ethnological complexion of the lower Mississippi tribes and attempting so far as possible to recover their past history, it is most unpleasant to have to deal with a possibility of such radical importance, and it is therefore of the utmost consequence, if not to demonstrate the fraudulent or genuine character of the grammar, at least to properly classify the language of the Taënsa tribe itself. Rather unexpectedly material has recently come into the writer's hands which he believes to be decisive.

Having reviewed the course of the controversy in outline it will be in order, before bringing in this new evidence, to take up the points brought forward pro and con in the articles above mentioned. Those adduced by Brinton in his initial attack were that no scholar of standing had had access to the original manuscript from which the material was taken; that the language could not have been recorded by a Spaniard, as claimed, because from the time when the Taënsa tribe was first known until their destruction "as minutely recorded by Charlevoix" in 1730–1740 they were under French influences entirely; no Spanish mission was among them, and no Spaniard in civil life could have remained among them without having been noticed, owing to the national jealousies everywhere prevalent at the time. Turning to the grammar itself this critic finds that the pronunciation of Taënsa sounds is explained by means of the French, English, German, and Spanish. Now, inasmuch as neither M. Haumonté, among whose papers the manuscript was supposed to have been found, nor M. Parisot could have heard the language spoken, it is conceived that the original compiler must have had a knowledge of languages quite remarkable for the early part of the eighteenth century. He also finds references to the Nahuatl, Kechua, and Algonkin tongues, which must certainly have been introduced by the translator, although no explanation of this is vouchsafed. Regarding the structure of the language itself Doctor Brinton says:

That an American language should have a distinctively grammatical gender; that it should have a true relative pronoun; that its numeral system should be based on the nine units in the extraordinarily simple manner here proposed; that it should have three forms of the plural; that its verbs should present the singular simplicity of these—these traits are, indeed, not impossible, but they are too unusual not to demand the best of evidence.

The most convincing proof "as to the humbuggery of this whole business" he finds, however, in the Taënsa songs. According to these, the sugar maple is made to flourish in the Louisiana swamps; the sugar cane was raised by the Taënsa, "although the books say it was introduced into Louisiana by the Jesuits in 1761;" potatoes, rice, apples, and bananas were familiar to them, "and the white birch and wild rice are described as flourishing around the bayous of the lower Mississippi." To the argument that these might be mistranslations of misunderstood native words he asks what sort of editing it is "which could not only commit such unpardonable blunders, but send them forth to the scientific world without a hint that they do not pretend to be anything more than guesses?" The same ignorance of climatic conditions appears in the Calendar of the Taënsa, particularly in the references to snow and ice here and in other places. The style of the songs themselves is also "utterly unlike that reported from any other native tribe. It much more closely resembles the stilted and tumid imitations of supposed savage simplicity common enough among French writers of the eighteenth century." As an example of this un-Indian style and the geographical ignorance accompanying it Brinton quotes one of these songs, "The Song of the Marriage," and comments upon it as follows:

The Choctaws are located ten days' journey up the Mississippi, in the wild-rice region about the headwaters of the stream, whereas they were the immediate neighbors of the real Taënsa and dwelt when first discovered in the middle and southern parts of the present State of Mississippi. The sugar maple is made to grow in the Louisiana swamps, the broad-leaved magnolia and the ebony in Minnesota. The latter is described as the land of the myrtle and the former of the vine. The northern warrior brings feet rings and infant clothing as presents, while the southern bride knows all about boiling maple sap and is like a white birch. But the author's knowledge of aboriginal customs stands out most prominently when he has the up-river chief come with an ox cart and boast of his cows! After that passage I need say nothing more. He is, indeed, ignorant who does not know that not a single draft animal and not one kept for its milk was ever found among the natives of the Mississippi valley.

In conclusion the writer recalls the grammar of a fictitious Formosa language brought forth by George Psalmanazar, and adds the statements of De Montigny, Gravier, and Du Pratz to the effect that the Taënsa spoke the Natchez language, which is known to be entirely distinct from that contained in the Taënsa Grammar. "Moreover," he says, "we have in old writers the names of the Taënsa villages furnished by the Taënsa themselves, and they also are nowise akin to the matter of this grammar, but are of Chahta-Muskoki derivation."

Two of the three brochures which contain M. Adam's reply to this attack show in their titles a confession of weakness, since they merely maintain that the grammar had not been forged in all portions. In fact, M. Adam at once abandons any defense of the "texts," saying: "In my own mind I have always considered them the work of some disciple of the Jesuit fathers, who had taken a fancy to the Taënsa poetry." The brochures also contain copies of correspondence between MM. Adam, Parisot, and others relative to the original manuscript which Adam demanded and Parisot declared to be no longer in his possession. It further developed that M. Haumonté, M. Parisot's maternal uncle, among whose papers the Taënsa manuscripts were supposed to have been found, was no linguist, and could have had nothing to do with the documents. Parisot furthermore admitted that the originals were not all in Spanish, and that he had written out and altered the grammar, besides augmenting the vocabulary with terms which had been translated only by conjectures. Not only was Parisot unable to produce the original, but a thorough search among the family papers on the part of his father failed to reveal anything of the sort. Nevertheless, M. Adam explained the presence of the manuscripts among M. Haumonté's papers by supposing that they had been left there by some visitor, M. Haumonté having kept a lodging house, and proceeded to defend the grammar itself by replying to the philological objections raised by Doctor Brinton. He supported his position by means of a letter from the noted German philologist, Friedrich Müller, who also gave it as his opinion that the grammar was not altogether fraudulent.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico by John R. Swanton. Copyright © 1998 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Page,
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL,
Table of Figures,
INTRODUCTION,
CLASSIFICATION OF THE TRIBES,
POPULATION,
THE NATCHEZ GROUP,
MUSKHOGEAN TRIBES PROPER,
THE TUNICAN GROUP,
THE CHITIMACHA,
THE ATAKAPA GROUP,
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES,
INDEX.,

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