SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, TO^O I97 



black walnut and a species of dock (fig. 172). From Benjamin Paul, 

 chief of this little band, small additions were made to the writer's 

 collection of folklore and native texts. 



Choctaw was formerly spoken by some small tribes along the Mis- 

 sissippi and is still used by several scattered families, one of which was 

 visited, but it is preserved by several thousand Indians in Oklahoma 

 and Mississippi and is in no immediate danger of extinction. 



The Tunica, who have occupied a small reservation near Marksville 

 for over a hundred years, may properly be regarded as Louisiana 

 Indians since they hunted and boiled down salt in the northern part 

 of the State from the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, 

 though their towns were usually just beyond the Mississippi. Their 

 reservation contains remnants of other tribes to which it furnished a 

 haven of refuge from the advancing white settlements. Among these 

 tribes were the Biloxi from the Gulf coast of Mississippi, and the 

 Ofo or Ofogoula, a people associated historically with Yazoo River 

 but traceable as far north and east as Cincinnati. With them were also 

 descendants of the Avoyel (from whom the parish of Avoyelles re- 

 ceives its name), the oldest known inhabitants of the country and said 

 to be a branch of the famous Natchez Indians. The Avoyel tongue 

 itself is extinct but the blood of the tribe is preserved in the veins of 

 Earnest Pierrette (fig. 173) along with strains of Tunica and Biloxi. 

 Since his wife was an Ofo woman, their daughters are descended 

 from four tribes belonging to three distinct linguistic families. From 

 the mother, Rosa Pierrette, the writer collected in 1908 a considerable 

 vocabulary which showed its affinity with the Siouan linguistic family, 

 including such well-known peoples as the Sioux, Osage, Omaha, and 

 Crow. This fact also helped to identify the tribe with an ancient 

 people formerly living in Ohio. When Rosa Pierrette died, about 

 15 years ago, the Ofo language died with her. The extinct Avoyel 

 tongue was probably nearly like that of the Natchez still known to two 

 or three Indians in Oklahoma. 



Earnest Pierrette himself is one of the few individuals who can still 

 speak Tunica fluently. Another, Sesostrie Yauchicant (fig. 174), 

 whose name his American neighbors have " shortened " to Sam 

 Young, was for many years chief of the tribe, and he proved to be a 

 splendid informant, possessed of the ability, rather rare among 

 Indians, of dictating texts slowly in his own language. The stories in 

 Tunica and English obtained from him, while for the most part short, 

 are a valuable addition to our too limited knowledge of the tongue 

 and traditions of these Indians. 



