SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 363 



have lived on by themselves in the same region until gradually 

 reduced and exterminated by the advance of the white settlements. 



From mission records recently examined by Professor Bolton, of 

 the University of Texas, it appears probable that the Bidai, hitherto 

 supposed to be of Caddoan stock, were affiliated with the Atakapa, 

 and that the Deadoses and other tribes, of which little more than the 

 names survive, were also connected with them. 



All that we know of the ethnology of the Atakapa is contained in 

 Duralde's letter cited already in connection with the Chitimacha. 

 The Atakapa section is as follows : 



The Atacapas pretend that they are come out of the sea, that a prophet or 

 man inspired by God laid down the rules of conduct to their first ancestors 

 (peres), which consisted in not doing any evil. They believe in an author of 

 all things : that those who do well go above, and that those who do evil descend 

 under the earth into the shades. They speak of a deluge which swallowed up 

 men, animals, and the land, and it was only those who resided along a high 

 land or mountain (that of San Antonio, if we may judge) who escaped this 

 calamity. 



According to their law a man ceases to bear his own name as soon as he has 

 a child born, and he is then called ' the father of such a boy,' giving the name 

 of the child. If the child dies the father again assumes his own name. The 

 women alone are charged with the labors of the field and of the household. 



The mounds according to them were intended to elevate and distinguish the 

 dwellings of the chiefs, and were thrown up under their supervision by the 

 women. * * * 



Many years before the discovery of the elephant in the bayou called Carancro 

 an Atakapas savage had informed a man who is at present in my service in 

 the capacity of cow-herd that the ancestors of his nation transmitted [the 

 story] to their descendants that a beast of enormous size had perished either 

 in this bayou or in one of the two water courses a short distance from it with- 

 out their being able to indicate the true place, the antiquity of the event having 

 without doubt made tliem forget it. The fact has realized this tradition." 



This was written at Atakapas (now Franklin), April 23, 1802, and 

 therefore applies particularly to the eastern Atakapa, or Fliye'kiti, as 

 the Lake Charles people called them. Whether the beliefs of the 

 western Atakapa were the same we shall probably never know, but as 

 some of the Chitimacha stories collected bj^ the writer were known to 

 them, it is probable that there was comparatively little difference. 

 Dialectically, however, there was some divergence, judging by a 

 comparison of Duralde's vocabulary with that obtained by Gatschet. 



The Opelousa 



This name is probably from aha, ' above,' and lusa, ' black,' and 

 it is usually translated ' black hair,' or ' black head.' The tribe 

 appears to be referred to first in an unpublished letter of Bienville, 

 dated May 15, 1733, where it occurs in the form " Loupelousas." ^ 



"Ms., in Bureau of American Ethnology. 

 "French, Hist. Coll. La., 70, 1850. 



