8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



lower Pascagoiila river, were within it. Vocabularies proving 

 Siouan relationship have been obtained from both, and as historical 

 accounts of the two tribes will be prefixed to the published lin- 

 guistic material they will be passed over in the present paper. The 

 Muskhogean linguistic stock, indicated in light green, is the most 

 important large stock with Avhich we have to deal. Roughly speaking, 

 it extended from the Mississippi river to the Savannah river and 

 the Atlantic ocean, while on the south it reached the gulf of Mexico 

 except where interrupted by the Biloxi above referred to and the 

 Timucua of Florida. The tribes composing it form two sejDarate 

 groups or substocks, the Muskhogean proper and the Natchez group, 

 of which the latter falls entirely within the province of our discus- 

 sion, while of the former only some smaller and comparatively insig- 

 nificant divisions concern us. The large and powerful tribes which 

 have played an important part in history and many of which con- 

 tinue to play it require independent treatment. These are the Yamasi 

 of the Georgia coast, the Apalachi, on Apalachee bay between Apa- 

 lachicola and Ocilla rivers, the Creeks — in reality a confederac}^ of 

 tribes — of the Chattahoochee, Flint, Alabama, Tallapoosa, and Coosa 

 rivers, the Chickasaw of northern Mississippi and western Tennessee, 

 and the Choctaw of southern Mississippi and southwestern Alabama. 



Although they lie outside the area of which it is proposed to treat 

 at length, it will be convenient to include in this chapter a considera- 

 tion of the coast tribes between Pascagoula and Apalachicola rivers, 

 embracing the Mobile, Tohome, Naniaba, Pensacola, Chatot, Tawasa, 

 and some small bands associated with the two last. Westward one 

 of the cultural areas with which we deal extended not only to the 

 Rio Grande, but into the Mexican State of Tamaulipas as well, until 

 it reached the Huastec of Panuco, the northernmost representa- 

 tives of the Mayan linguistic family. So far as is knoAvn, however, 

 the tribes of southern Texas are utterly extirpated. Twenty years 

 ago two small bands existed near Camargo, on the Mexican side of 

 the Rio Grande, but it is doubtful whether even their language is re- 

 tained at the present time ; while all the manuscript information ob- 

 tainable is now being made the subject of a special investigation by 

 Dr. H. E. Bolton, of the University of Texas. We shall therefore 

 draAV a somewhat arbitrary' line of demarcation in this direction at the 

 Sabine ri^'er, or at most near Galveston bay and Trinity river, where 

 the Atakapa stock appears to have terminated. 



Within the region thus outlined the number and names of the 

 tribes which history reveals to us seem very definite and well 

 established. Leaving aside words which are evidently distorted 

 forms of the names of well-known peoples, there are very few tribes 

 i-eferred to so seldom that their independent existence is in doubt. 

 On the basis of language, the most convenient method of classifica- 



