SWANTON] IXniAN TRIBES OF TITK l.OWKIl MTSSISSIIM'I VAI.LKY 189 



by the fact tliat by 1<>!)S the Koioa town had disappcarcMl tVom the 

 phice where La Salle and liis eoinpaiiions had found it, a disappear- 

 ance which is one of the mysteries of Louisiana ethnolo<j^. Early 

 in KiOO Tonti apiin descended the Mississi})pi to find La Salh', ])ut 

 this time he did not himself i^o below the Tai'iisa, the rest of his jour- 

 ney bein^ directed overland into the Caddoan country. On the ."ith 

 of February, however, while he was encamped opposite the Taensa, 

 he sent three men to the Xatchez to inquire about two Frenchmen 

 who were missing, and they brouorht back word that the Natchez 

 had killed them." 



January -i, 1(598, four missionary priests, Davion, La Source, De 

 Montigny, and St. Cosme, left the Quapaw to visit the tribes below^* 

 On the 11th they reached the Tunica, where it was decided to place 

 Father Davion, and on the 21st the Taensa. Although they went no 

 lower they heard considerable of the Natchez either from Indians or 

 unnamed travelers. La Source records the sacrifice of human lives 

 on the death of a chief, and De Montigny states that they sijoke 

 the same language as the Taensa and were more numerous than the 

 Tunica.'" It was determined that ^l. de Montigny should settle 

 among the Taensa. On the 27th they left this latter tribe to return 

 to the Tunica, and afterward reascended the river to obtain such 

 articles as should be needed in the new missions. In January, IGOO, 

 De Montigny was back among the Quapaw, as we learn from his letter 

 dated the 2d of that month. " For the present," he says, " I reside 

 among the Taensas, but am to go shortly to the Natchez." '^ 



Meanwhile La Salle's project of planting a colony near the mouth 

 of the Mississippi, which had disastrously miscarried because he kept 

 too far to the westward and landed on the Texas coast, was revived 

 in France, and on October 24, 1G98, Lemoyne d'Iberville, a noted 

 naval officer and already a figure in Canadian history, set* sail from 

 Brest with two frigates. La Badine and Le Marin. In February 

 he Avas in the neighborhood of the coast of the present Louisiana, and 

 on the 18th of that month he claims to have made an alliance, through 

 the medium of the calumet, with 11 different nations, among which 

 was the '' Techloel," evidently the Natchez.' On the 27th he left with 

 small boats to find and explore the Mississippi, which he discovered 

 on the 2d of the following month. On JNIarch 14 he reached the 

 village of the Bayogoula and the Mugulaslia, and on the 20tli that 

 of the Houma. A Taensa was taken into his canoe at this latter place 

 and gave Iberville much information regarding the tribes on the river 

 above and on the Yazoo and Red rivers. The Natchez he called 



" Froncli, Hist. Coll. La., 72, 1840. ''Shea, Earl.v Voy. Miss., 70. 



6 Shoa. Karly Voy. Miss., 75-80 -^ Marjory, D6couverto.s, iv, ]r..j. 



" lie had not mel (he >Catchez, however, at that time. 



