DORSEY-s WANTON] THE BILOXI AND OrO LANGUAGES 11 



who comprise in all 50 or 60 small cabins."'^ In this narrative 

 "Ounspik" is evidently a misreading or misprint of Ounspie, which 

 is a variant of Ouispie. In the Tunica mission of Father Davion, 

 Gravier did not learn the proper name of the tribe. In the journal 

 of his descent of the Mississippi in 1721, Charlevoix mentions ''a 

 village of Yasous mixed with Curoas and Ofogoulas, wliich may have 

 been at most two hundred men fit to bear arms." ^ January 26, 1722, 

 La Harpe entered the Yazoo, and describes the condition of the lower 

 Yazoo tribes thus: ''The river of the Yasons runs from its mouth 

 north-northeast to Fort St. Peter, then north a quarter northwest 

 half a league, and turning back by the north until it is east a quarter 

 northeast another half league as far as the low stone bluffs on which 

 are situated settlements of the Yasons, Courois, Offogoula, and 

 Onspee nations; their cabins are dispersed by cantons, the greater 

 part situated on artificial earthen mounds between the valleys, which 

 leads one to suppose that anciently these nations were numerous. 

 Now they are reduced to about two hundred and fifty persons."*' 

 Father Poisson, ascending to his mission among the Quapaw in 1727, 

 speaks of ''three villages [on the lower Yazoo] in which three different 

 languages are spoken," ^ but professes no further knowledge regarding 

 them. In his general survey of Louisiana tribes, founded on infor- 

 mation received between the years 1718 and 1734, Du Pratz assigns 

 this tribe "about 60 cabins " as against 100 for the Yazoo and 40 for the 

 Koroa,* which would appear to be a very considerable overestimate. 

 In 1729 the Yazoo and Koroa joined in the Natchez uprising, 

 slew their missionary, and destroyed the French post that had been 

 established among them. "The Offogoulas," says Charlevoix, 

 "were then on a hunt; on their return they were strongly urged to 

 enter the plot ; but they steadily refused, and withdrew to the Tonicas, 

 whom they knew to be of all the Indians the most inviolably attached 

 to the French."-'' The earUer association which we know to have 

 subsisted between these two tribes may also be assigned as a probable 

 cause of their association with them at that period. During the 

 subsequent hostilities they continued firm friends and efficient allies 

 of the French. In 1739 an officer under M. de Noailles, ascending the 

 Mississippi to take part in Bienville's projected attack on the Chicka- 

 saw, says: "This last [the Natchez tribe] is the cause of our war 

 against the latter [the Chickasaw], and induces them to extend their 

 expeditions to this very fort [Fort Rosalie] against the Ossogoulas, 

 a small tribe of fourteen or fifteen warriors who have settled here 



a Shea, Early Voyages on the Mississippi, p. 133, 1861. 



t> French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, pt. 3, pp. 138-139, 1S51. 



c La Harpe, Jour. Hist, de I'Etabllssement des Fran^ais 4 la Louisiane, pp. 310-311, 1831. 



liJesuit Relations, Thwaites ed., Lxvn, p. 317, 1900. 



«Du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane, n, pp. 225-226, 1758. 



/ Shea's Charlevoix's History of New France, vi, p. 86, 1872. 



83515°— Bull. 47—12 2 



