26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



' rock ' appears to be used and in the other the word for ' flhit/ Still 

 other evidence is furnished b}^ Iberville in the journal of his second 

 voyage to Louisiana. Under date of the 5th of March, when he was 

 in the Houma village, he says, "There were with them about 40 

 Little Taensas, who had come to see them and to offer their services 

 against the Bayogoulas. These Taensas arc wanderers, living ordi- 

 narily three days' journey west of this village. * * * " '^ The 

 position indicated would place them on lower Eed river or its 

 southern effluents, and since there was no good location for a tribe 

 short of JNIarksville prairie and we nowhere hear of such a tribe again,, 

 it is a fair presumption that the '' Little Taensas " were one and the 

 same people with the Avoyel. That being the case, the relationship 

 of the latter to the Taensa proper, or " Great Taensas," and therefore 

 to the Natchez, becomes almost a matter of course. 



Our first infoi-mation regarding the interrelationship of the Mus- 

 khogean tribes proper is the following in Iberville's journal of his first 

 expedition to Louisiana: "The Oumas, Bayogoulas, Theloel [i. e., 

 Natchez], Taensas, the Coloas, the Chycacha, the Napissa, the Ouachas 

 [i. e., Washa], Choutymachas, Yagenechito, speak the same language, 

 and they and the Bilochy and Pascoboula understand each other." ^ 

 This is erroneous, since it includes, besides Muskhogean tribes proper, 

 the Natchez and Taensa of the Natchez group, and the Chitimacha. 

 His reference to the Biloxi can not be so justly criticised, however, 

 since he merely states that they and the Pascagoula made themselves 

 understood b}^ the rest. Iberville's error is evidently due first to the 

 fact that all of these tribes could converse Avith one another in the 

 Mobilian trade language, and secondly to his ignorance of most of the 

 tribes of which he speaks. He had visited the Houma and the Bayo- 

 goula in person, and had met some Biloxi, Pascagoula, and Washa, 

 and a single Taensa, but his acquaintance with these had extended over 

 only a few hours and gave him very little opportunity to hear them 

 converse among themselves. The others he kncAv merely by report. 

 The journalist of Iberville's second vessel, Le Marin, saj^s " The village 

 [of the Bayogoula] is composed of two nations, which are the Mon- 

 goulachas and the Bayogoulas, which have the same language." " 

 Three months after this time the missionary priests De Montigny and 

 Davion descended the Mississippi from their posts higher up to 

 Biloxi, and in an unpublished letter narrating the events of this 

 voyage De Montigny says, " The 14 [of June, 1G99] Ave arrived among 

 the Oumats, Avho are much lower down than the Natchez. * * * 

 This village is of about one hundred cabins; their language is the 

 same as that of the Kinipissas, the Chicachas, and many other na- 



"Margry, Ddcouvertes, iv, 408-409, 1880. 

 " Ibid., 184. 

 " Ibid., 262. 



