INDIAN LANGUAGE STUDIES IN LOUISIANA 



By JOHN R. SWANTON, 

 Ethnologist, Bureau of American Ethnology 



More languages were spoken within the boundaries of the present 

 State of Louisiana when it was settled by the French than in any simi- 

 lar area north of the Rio Grande and between the Rocky Mountains 

 and the Atlantic. The number was even increased at a later date by 

 the entrance of several tribes from points east of the Mississippi. In 

 consequence Louisiana has always been one of the most interesting 

 regions in the eastern United States for students of American Indian 

 languages. Systematic work was begun here by Dr. A. S. Gatschet of 

 the Bureau of American Ethnology about 1880 and it has been con- 

 tinued at intervals ever since. In 1907 the writer took up Dr. Gat- 

 schet's work and has visited the State a number of times, but until the 

 introduction of the automobile it was difficult to reach all corners of 

 it or to say positively how many speakers of the aboriginal tongues 

 still survived. The past summer, however, through the kind coopera- 

 tion of Miss Caroline Dormon, of Chestnut, Louisiana, a leader in 

 movements for the conservation of the natural resources and antiqui- 

 ties of this commonwealth, and her sister Mrs. Miller, who acted as 

 chauffeur in the various expeditions which were undertaken, nearly 

 all groups of Indians in that part of Louisiana west of the Missis- 

 sippi of whom knowledge could be obtained were visited and accu- 

 rate information was secured regarding the remaining ethnological 

 possibilities of the section. 



The language of the Atakapa or " man-eating Indians," formerly 

 spoken on the coast between Vermilion Bayou and Galveston, Texas, 

 in two dialects, is absolutely extinct, except as the knowledge of a 

 few words survives in the memory of one old woman at Sulphur. 

 Chitimacha, which was in use by an interesting tribe about Grand 

 Lake, is known to but three or possibly four individuals, most of 

 whom live at Charenton, a picturesque old Creole town on Bayou 

 Teche. Their cane basketry industry is the best that survives in the 

 eastern part of our country, and its preservation was largely due to 

 Mrs. Sidney Bradford of Avery Island, who induced the Indians to 

 discard store dyes in favor of their old native colors derived from 



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