swanton] indian tribes op the lower mississippi valley 297 



The Ibitoupa 



This name perhaps means " People at the source " {Ihetqp^ " the 

 fountain, source, head"). On a map made by Lieutenant Ross, of 

 the Thirty-fourth Eegiment, the " Oiatoupou " are placed on Yazoo 

 river some distance above the mouth of the Yalobusha; and below 

 the latter, apparently between Abyatche and Chicopa creeks, in the 

 present Holmes county. Miss., is the legend " antient land of the 

 Ibitupas." " There can be little doubt that the " Oiatoupou " and 

 " Ibitupas " are the same, and this would indicate that anciently 

 they lived below the Yalobusha, but in later times had moved above 

 it. If such was the case, this movement must have occurred before 

 1722, for in that year La Plarpe states that they were 3 leagues above 

 the Chakchiuma, who were near the mouth of Yalobusha river.'' It 

 has been suggested elsewhere that the " Choulas,"" placed by him 25 to 

 30 leagues above the lower Yazoo tribes and a short distance beloAV 

 the Chakchiuma, may have been a band of Ibitoupa left behind 

 temporarily at the time of the migration.^ They then numbered but 

 40 and are never heard of again, a fact which would tend to 

 strengthen this suggestion. The Ibitoupa were only a small tribe 

 as far back as leDO,*^ numbered only 6 cabins in 1722,'' and they were, 

 probably united with the ChickasaAv soon after the Natchez war, 

 though they may first have combined with the Chakchiuma. 



The Washa 



The Washa are first mentioned by Iberville as one of four nations 

 west of the Mississippi which came to make an alliance with him 

 in 1699, shortly after his arrival on the Louisiana coast.^ On his 

 ascent of the river the same year he encountered two canoes, one 

 belonging to the Bayogoula, living farther up the river, and the 

 other (containing five men and a woman) to the Washa. These 

 latter soon left him to proceed to the village of the Washa, on Bayou 

 La Fourche.'' Bayou La Fourche was called by Iberville's Indian 

 guide " the river of the Washas," though afterward' the French 

 called it " the river (or fork) of the Chitimacha," owing to the 

 greater prominence of the latter tribe. This name, as well as the 

 later occupancy of Bayou La Fourche by Chitimacha Indians, has 

 led Gatschet and other writers to consider that bayou as one of the 



" Jefferys Amer. Atlas, 26, 1776. 



"La Ilarpe, Jour. Hist., 311, 1831. 



-= Ibid. See p. 30. 



•i Compte Renda Cong. Internat. des Amer., 15th sess., i, 36. 



^ Margry, Decouvertes, iv, 155, 1880. 



1 1bid., 166, 255. 



