The Fur Animals of Louisiana 



205 



The early writers of Louisiana history in describing the life of the Gulf Coast Indians 

 made frequent references to the Cabane of the aboriginals, leading many to believe that 

 they lived in "cabins." As the illustration in Le Page du Praatz's history shows, we 

 would term the Cabane a "wigwam" or a "tepee." 



The original French version being: 



"Ouand elles sortent de leur Cabanne elles se 

 couvrir d'une Robe de Rats musquez on de plumes de 

 cocqs d'Inde." 



[A cabanne is French for what we now call a "wigwam" 

 or "tepee."] 



We are told that the Cree Indians of the Atlantic Coast 

 called this rodent musquash or tvatsus or wachush. [Was 

 this what Captain John Smith meant by his mussacus?~\ 

 and that musquash meant: "The little animal that sits on 

 the ice in a round form." Quite a description of one gut- 

 tural two-syllable word. The Huron Indians called the 

 muskrat ondrata, a word that has been proposed by some 

 naturalists as its scientific generic name instead of Fiber. 



Our own Gulf Coast Indians called our muskrat by sev- 

 eral names, the Choctaws naming it pichali; the Ofo Indians 

 terming it ani oklose, and the Biloxi calling it xanaxpe, but 

 the original names bestowed on it by the Tunicas, Chiti- 

 machas and Atakapas seem to have been lost. 



