10 BUREAU OF AMEEICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 47 



death, which occurred February 4, 1895, was one of the severest 

 blows that the study of American Indian languages has had to endure. 



All that is known about the ethnology of the Biloxi tribe, besides 

 what is given in the preceding pages and what may be inferred from 

 that of other tribes in the same general region, is contained in Mr. 

 Dorsey's vice-presidential address above referred to and in the texts 

 which follow. 



The Siouan tribes most closely related to the Biloxi linguistically 

 appear to have been the recently discovered Ofo of the lower Yazoo, 

 the now extinct Tutelo of Virginia, and probably the other Siouan 

 tribes of the East as well. Among the western Sioux they found 

 their nearest relatives, curiously enough, among the northern repre- 

 sentatives of the stock, the Dakota, Hidatsa, Mandan, Crows, and 

 Winnebago. A closer study will probably establish their position in 

 the group with much more exactness. 



THE OFO 



The Ofo tribe usually appears in history under the name Offagoula, 

 or Ofogoula, which is evidently composed of their proper designation 

 and the Mobilian ending meaning ''people." Du Pratz naturally 

 but erroneously assumes that the first part is derived from MobiHan 

 or Choctaw ofe, "dog." By the Tunica, and apparently by the Yazoo 

 and Koroa as well, they were laiown as Ushpie ( Vein), and this word 

 has been employed by some French travelers not thoroughly familiar 

 with the Yazoo tribes as if it referred to an independent people. 



The first reference to the Ofo, so far as the writer is aware, is in 

 Iberville's journal of his first expedition to the mouth of the Mis- 

 sissippi in 1699. He did not ascend the river as far as the Yazoo, 

 it is true, but he was informed by a Taensa Indian that upon it were 

 "seven villages, wliich are the Tonicas, Ouispe, Opocoulas, Taposa, 

 Chaquesauma, Outapa, Thysia." '^ Here the two names of the Ofo 

 are given as if there were two distinct tribes. Margry, the tran- 

 scriber of this document, has evidently misread Opocoulas for Ofo- 

 coulas. Penicaut, in chronichng Le Sueur's ascent of the Mississippi 

 the year after, says: "Ascending the river [Yazoo] four leagues one 

 finds on the right the villages where six nations of savages five called 

 the Yasoux, the Offogoulas, the Tonicas, the Coroas, the Ouitoupas, 

 and the Oussipes." ^ The Jesuit missionary Gravier visited tlfis river 

 later in the same year in order to see Father Davion, who had estab- 

 lished himself as nussionary among the Tunica and was reported to 

 be dangerously ill. He saj^s: "There are three dift'erent languages in 

 his mission, the Jakou [Yazoo] of 30 cabins, the Ounspik of 10 or 12 

 cabins, and the Toumika [Tunica], who are in seven hamlets, and 



a Margry, D^couvertes, iv, p. 180. >> Ibid., v, p. 401. 



