swANTox] [NDUN THIBliS OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 315 



iHiniber of 30 men, they attacked a fleet of English pirogues ascending 

 the river, and in two, wliich were in advance of the rest, killed 6 

 men and wounded T, whereupon the boats retreated and the expedi- 

 tion was abandoned. This attack is said to have been provoked by 

 the refusal of the English to give up a slave Avho had fled to them." 



Some time between 178-1, when Hutchins ascended the Mississippi, 

 and the annexation of Louisiana to the United States (180H), oc- 

 curred the final Tunica migration to Marksville prairie on lower 

 Red river. The reason for this movement is unknown, but Gat- 

 schet's Tunica informant stated that his people had purchased the 

 site of their new village from the Avoyel (called in Tunica 

 Shi' xliol-tl' ni) ,^ Here they obtained a grant of a small tract of land 

 where 7 families are still to be found, numbering about 32 persons. 

 About twenty-three years ago Gatschet heard of some Tunica Indians 

 near Beaumont, Tex., perhaps the descendants of those mentioned by 

 Sibley (1805) as having intermarried with the Atakapa,'^ but in 1908 

 the writer Avas unable to learn anything about them. Mooney also 

 reports a small band in the southern part of the Choctaw Nation, 

 Okla., but states that they did not speak their own language. Plates 

 1(), 17, and IS show some of the present survivors and the kind of 

 house they inhabit. 



The arts, sciences, and daily life of the Tunica were evidently 

 little difterent from those of the Natchez. Their houses consisted of 

 the same framework of slender poles covered with palmetto leaves, 

 corn husks, nuid, grass, and mats. On this ]:)oint La Source says: 



Their bouses are made of palisades and earth, and are very large; they make 

 fire in them only twice a day, and do their coolcing outside in earthen pots.'' 



Gravier saj^s: 



Their cabins are round and vaulted. They are lathed with canes and plas- 

 tered with mud from bottom to top. within and without, with a good covering 

 of straw. There is no light except by the door; it is as hot as a vapor bath. 

 At night a lighted torcli of dried canes serves as a candle and keeps all the 

 cabin warm. Their bed is of round canes, raised on 4 posts, 3 feet high, and 

 a cane mat serves :is a mattress. Nothing is neater than their cabins. You 

 see there neither clothes, nor sacks, nor kettles, nor hatchets, nor guns ; they 

 carry all with them.. and have no riches but earthenware pots, quite well made, 

 esi)ecially little glazed pitchers, as neat as you would see in France; their gran- 

 aries are near their cabins, made lilie dovecotes, built on 4 large posts, l.^» or 

 10 feet high, well put together and well polished, so that the mice can not 

 climb ui), and in this way they [jrotect their corn and squashes." 



^ VilHers dii Terrage, Les Dernieres Annees de La Louisiane Frangaise, 182-18.3. 



'' The present Tunica chief seems to have confused this occurrence with traditions of the 

 last Nachez war. He said that in movinu; to ISIarksville I'rairie his people had been opposed 

 liy the Natchez (Shi'xkal-pu'ska, " Stone-pilers "') and had been unsuccessful against them 

 uiUil the Spaniards came to their aid. 



•■ See p. 4.3. note. 



"Shea, Early Voy. Miss., SO, ISGl. 



« Ibid.. 135. 



