6 BUREAU OF AMEEICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 47 



Pascagoula river, 16 leagues from the sea, in a village consisting of 

 fewer than 20 cabins." La Harpe reduces the distance to 8 leagues, and 

 places the number of their warriors at 130,'' but it appears from Iber- 

 ville's journal, written during his own visit, April, 1700, that Sau- 

 volle's account is the more reliable. During the latter expedition 

 Iberville found the ruins of the former Biloxi village 6^ leagues from 

 the mouth of the river, and says of it: 



This village is abandoned, the nation having been destroyed two years ago by 

 sickness. Two leagues below this village one begins to find many deserted spots 

 quite near each other on both banks of the river. The savages report that this 

 nation was formerly quite numerous. It did not appear to me that there had been 

 in this village more than from thirty to forty cabins, built long, and the roofs, as we 

 make ours, covered with the bark of trees. They were all of one story of about eight 

 feet in height, made of mud. Only three remain; the others are burned. The vil- 

 lage was surrounded by palings eight feet in height, of about eighteen inches in 

 diameter. There still remain three square watch-towers (guerites) measuring ten 

 feet on each face; they are raised to a height of eight feet on posts; the sides made 

 of mud mixed with grass, of a thickness of eight inches, well covered. There were 

 many loopholes through which to shoot their arrows. It appeared to me that there 

 had been a watch-tower at each angle, and one midway of the curtains (au milieu 

 des courtines) ; it was sufficiently strong to defend them against enemies that have 

 only arrows, c 



Eleven and a half leagues beyond, i. e., 18 leagues from the mouth 

 of the river, he came to the Pascagoula village where the Biloxi and 

 Moctobi may then have been settled, as stated by Sauvolle and La 

 Harpe, though Iberville does not mention them. He agrees with 

 Sauvolle, however, when he says that there were only about twenty 

 families in that place. 



Iberville's failure to mention the Biloxi and Moctobi, added to the 

 fact that both Biloxi and Pascagoula kept their autonomy for more 

 than a hundred years after this time in the face of adverse circum- 

 stances, leads to a suspicion that the Biloxi were then living some- 

 where else. In 1702-3, according to Penicaut, St. Denis, then in 

 command of the first French fort on the Mississippi, induced the 

 Biloxi to abandon their former home and settle on a small bayou back 

 of the present New Orleans called in Choctaw Choupicacha, or Soup- 

 nacha.*^ Penicaut is apt to be very much mixed in his chronology, but 

 otherwise his statements are generally reliable, and in this particular he 

 is indirectly confirmed by La Harpe, who says that 15 Biloxi warriors 

 accompanied St. Denis in his expedition against the Chitimacha, March, 

 1707.^ In 1708 Penicaut notes the Biloxi still in their new position,-'" 

 but in 1722 we are informed that they settled on Pearl river on the 



a French, Hist. Coll. of La., p. 227, 1851. 



6 La Harpe, Jour. Hist, de rEtablissement des Frangais k la Louisiane, 1831, p. IG. 



cMargry, op. cit., IV, 425-426. 



d Ibid., V, 442. 



«La Harpe, Jour. Hist., p. 102, 1831. 



/ Margry, op. cit., v, 476. 



