96 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL, 69 
and plaistered inside and out with a reddish well tempered clay or 
mortar, which gives them the appearance of red brick walls; and 
these houses are neatly covered or roofed with Cypress bark or 
shingles of that tree. . . . Their own national language is alto- 
gether or radically different from the Creek or Muscogulge tongue. 
They are in confederacy with the Creeks, but do not mix 
with them; and, on account of their numbers and strength, are of 
importance enough to excite and draw upon them the jealousy of 
the whole Muscogulge confederacy, and are usually at variance, yet 
are wise enough to unite against a common enemy, to support the 
interest and glory of the general Creek confederacy.” (Bartram, 
W., (2), pp. 386-387.) 
The ‘‘town house,’ and probably the greater part of the settlement, 
stood on the right bank of the river, and in 1799 Hawkins wrote: 
‘Opposite the town house, on the left bank of the river, there is 
a narrow strip of flat land from fifty to one hundred yards wide, then 
high pine barren hills; these people speak a tongue different from the 
Grsalis: they were formerly settled in small villages at Ponpon, 
SAbisi hors (Sol-ke-chuh,) Silver Bluff, and O-ge-chee, (How-ge-chu, ) 
and were continually at war with the Cherokees, Fa-tau-bau and 
Creeks.’’ (Hawkins, B., (1), pp. 61-62.) 
How interesting would be a lengthy description of these ancient 
villages, with an account of the manners and customs of the people; 
but none is known to exist. 
The Tunican is the last of the seven linguistic groups to be men- 
tioned. Although one of the smaller stocks during historic times 
they may, in eaniier days, have been far more numerous and powerful. 
When encountered by the early French explorers, the Tunica claimed 
land on both banks of the Mississippi, their principal village being at 
one time on the banks of the Yazoo, sometime known as ‘‘the river 
of the Tounika,”’ a short distance from its confluence with the Missis- 
sippi, in the present Warren County, Mississippi. 
When the Jesuit, Pére Gravier, descended the Mississippi late in 
the autumn of 1700, he rested at the mission which had been estab- 
lished near the group of villages a short distance above the mouth of 
the Yazoo. He described the habitations of the Tunica as being 
‘‘round and vaulted,’’ and they evidently resembled the houses of the 
Natchez, being ‘‘lathed with canes and plastered with mud from 
bottom to top, within and without, with a good covering of straw.” 
The door was the only opening, and a small ‘‘lighted torch of dried | 
canes’’ furnished sufficient heat to cause the interior to be ‘‘as hot as 
a vapor bath.’’ Within all was neat and clean, their beds being 
arranged on posts 3 feet above the floor, and covered with mats 
formed of split canes. Near the dwellings were granaries ‘‘made like 
dovecotes, built on four large posts, 15 or 16 feet high, well put 
