330 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



the Natchez in 1()8"2. Were it not for the relations of that voyage it 

 would never be suspected that Koroa had lived there." 



This uncertainty even applies somewhat to the branch of this tribe 

 living on the Yazoo. Though Tonti and La Metairie, and later 

 Penicaut, enumerate them among the Yazoo river tribes, no notice 

 of them occurs in the letters of La Source and De Montigny, who 

 reached the Tunica in l()i)8, nor by Gravier two years later, while 

 Iberville seems to have been told that the Koroa and Yazoo had a 

 village by themselves on the Mississippi river.'' So far as the Koroa 

 are concerned, this is confirmed by Penicaut in his entry for the 

 year 1705 in which he says ""These savages dwell on the banks of 

 the Mississippi 4 leagues from the Yasous." '' Though Penicaut is 

 by no means infallible, it would seem likely, all things considered, 

 that at the period of first white contact the Koroa possessed a village 

 at some inconspicuous point on the Mississippi not far from the 

 mouth of the Yazoo, or that they were of a wandering disposition 

 and frequently camped away from the latter river. In confirmation 

 of this may be cited the fact that part of the eastern shore of the 

 Mississippi above the Yazoo was long called the bank of the Koroa.** 



Unlike the Tunica, they and the Yazoo were usually on good 

 terms with the Chickasaw, and therefore in the P^nglish interest. As 

 claimed by the French, this undoubtedly had something to do with 

 the murder of the missionary Foucault, though that it was directly 

 instigated by the English is improbable. This event is placed by 

 Penicaut in the year 1705, but by De la Vente and La Harpe, with 

 Avhom De Richebourg substantially agrees, in 1702.^ Penicaut's 

 account of the affair is as follows: 



Some time afterward there arrived at Mobile three persons sent by M. 

 Davion, priest [missionary] living among the Yasous, with a letter which noted 

 the death of M. Foucaut, a priest, and two Frenchmen named MM. Damboui'et 

 and de Saint-Laurent. They had come down from Canada in order to see 

 M. Davion, grand vicar of Monseigneur the Archbishop of Quebec. As this 

 priest had fallen ill on the way, they took four savages at the village of the 

 Coroas, and paid them to guide their canoe as far as the Yasous. This priest 

 having opened his coffer in order to pay in advance the four savages that for 

 which they had agreed to guide him, these savages having noticed that there 

 were in this coffer many goods which tempted them, took the determination 

 to murder them ; and the same even,ing, while the priest and the two Frenchmen 

 slept, the savages broke their heads and threw [their bodies] into the river; 

 then they carried away the canoe and the goods to their village, which is not 

 far from that of the Yasous.'^ 



"An explanation of tho apparent disappearance of these people is suggested on p. .335. 



* See p. 30.S. 



" Margry, Dficouvertes, v, 459. 



<" Jeffery's American Atlas, map, 27. In the .Tournal of 1739 given in Clailiorue. Hist. 

 Miss., mention is made of a channel called by this name. 



« Margry, Decouvertes, v, 458; Compte Rendu Cong. Internat. des Amer., loth, sess., i, 

 36; La Harpe, .Tour. Hist., 73; French. Hist. Coll. La., 246, 1851. The last named sim- 

 ply states that satisfaction was made by tho Koroa chiefs in 1703. 



' Margry, Decouvertes, v, 457-458. 



