188 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 43 



The Memoir of the Sieur de Toiiti runs tlius: 



I made the chief men among them cross over to M. de la Salle, who accom- 

 panied them to their village, 3 leagues inland, and passed the night there with 

 some of his men. The next day he returned with the chief of the village where 

 he had slept, who was a brother of the great chief of the Natches; he con- 

 ducted us to his brother's village, sitnate(^l on the hillside, near the river, at 

 G leagues distance. We were well received there. This nation counts more than 

 300 warriors. Here the men cultivate the ground, hunt, and fish, as well as 

 the Taenca, and their manners are the same.*' 



The truth of the matter is evidently contained in the first two 

 narratives, the hist being evidently garbled, and the town G leagues 

 distant said to belong to the great chief of the Natchez was the 

 " Coroa " or " Coroha " village of the other relations. 



Lower down the Mississippi La Salle's party had a hostile en- 

 counter with the Quinipissa tribe, and on their return they found 

 that the Koroa had been informed of this and had taken the part of 

 their enemies. The Natchez had evidently sided against him as well, 

 since no one was to be seen at the Natchez landing when they 

 encamped opposite on the night of April 20, and a little farther, 

 up hostile war cries greeted them from the other bank.^ 



Four years later, i. e., in 1686, Tonti descended the Mississippi 

 again to meet La Salle, who had sailed from France for its mouth, 

 and he writes: 



Having left [the Tai'-nsa] the 1st of April, after having navigated for 16 

 leagues, we arrived at the village of the Naches, where the chief awaited me 

 on the bank with the caluiyet. It is a nation which can furnish fifteen hundred 

 fighting men. I did not sleep there. I contented myself with comi)laining that 

 they had wished to kill us treacherously four years before, to which they 

 answered nothing." 



Although the people he met are here called the Natchez, and 

 although there is no doubt that the number of fighting men given 

 agrees very well with what we know of the strength of the nation at 

 that tiiue, the writer is of the opinion that the town he actually visited 

 was that of the Koroa. His reasons for believing this are that this 

 village, like that of the Koroa, and unlike those of the Natchez, is rep- 

 resented as situated on the bank of the Mississippi, and because 

 otherwise Tonti's complaint regarding the treacherous attempt 

 against his people is without point. La Salle and his comiDanions 

 not having stopped at the Natchez towns on their return four years 

 earlier -and they having heard nothing of that tribe except some 

 hostile cries in the woods. It would seem that Tonti's notes or his 

 memory became somewhat confused regarding the relation of these 

 two peoples to each other, a confusion rendered still greater, no doubt, 



"French, Hist. Coll. La., G2-G.'{, 1846. " Margry, D6couvertes, in, 556. 



'' See authorities just cited. 



