270 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



from St. Cosnie and such as took place in connection with the parish 

 church of Mobile. 



In 170() the Taensa were constrained by the Yazoo and Chickasaw 

 to abandon their villages and withdraw southward. La Harpe gives 

 the following accoiuit of this movement and its tragic sequel: 



The 25 [of Augnstl it was learned that the Tainsas, after having lieen 

 forced to abandon their villages by the Yasons and Chicachas, had retired 

 among the Bayagoulas, who had received them well ; but that a short time 

 afterward, the Tainsas, wishing to become sole masters of the village, had sur- 

 prised the Bayagoulas and massacred almost all the nation ; a punishment 

 which they justly merited for having destroyed the Mongoulachas, their allies, 

 by a similar piece of treachery; that afterward the Tainsas, fearing lest the 

 Colapissas, the Houmas, and the other nations which were friends to the 

 Bayagoulas would wish to revenge them, had taken the determination to return 

 to their ancient village; but that they had first invited many families of the 

 Chitimacha and Yagueneehiton nations, dwellers on the lakes, to come and eat 

 the grain of the Bayagoulas, and that by this ruse they had surprised many 

 of these savages, whom they had carried away as slaves." 



Penicaut confirms this account in the main, but as usual gives an 

 erroneous date, 1702.^ It does not seem likely, however, that the 

 Taensa carried out their determination, indicated in the La Harpe 

 narrative, of returning to their ancient village, and if they did so 

 there is no record to that etfect, for the next we hear of them they 

 were at Manchac. This was in 171.5 '^' when M. de la Loire des Ursins 

 was sent to apprehend an English trader supposed to have been sent 

 thither to make alliances with the tribes of the lower Mississippi.'* 

 La Harpe does not mention the Taensa, but Penicaut, who accom- 

 panied the expedition, states that they found that tribe at the Man- 

 chac, they having " abandoned their settlement on account of the 

 wars which the Oumas made against them continually," ^ and enlisted 

 them in their service. This " settlement " must have been the 

 " ancient village of the Tinssas," on the south side of the Mississippi, 

 11 leagues above New Orleans, where the concession of the Sieur de 

 Moeuve was subsequently placed (in 1718, according to Penicaut).'' 

 It must have been somewhere in the vicinity of Edgarcl. If they 

 abandoned this settlement on account of wars Avith the Houmas. how- 

 ever, it certainly seems strange that they should have moved directly 

 past their enemies, the Houma village at this time being on the 

 north side of the Mississippi in the present Ascension parish, near 

 Burnside, betAveen the old Taensa village and the Manchac. Be that 

 as it may, it is certain that they assisted in the apprehension of the 



« La Harpe, Jour. Hist, 97-98, 1831. 

 "Margry, D^couvertes, v, 431, 1883. 

 " Penicaut says 1713. 



"La Harpe, Jour. Hist., 118, 119, 1831; Penicaut in Margry, D^couvertes, v, 508-509, 

 1883. 



* Margry, D6couvertes, v, 508, 1883. 

 ' Ibid., 552, 



