8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL, 68 
their towns being close to its mouth. Tonti says that the Yazoo 
were ‘‘masters of the soil,’ by which we are probably to understand 
that they were the original occupants of that country.!. The Koroa 
were more inclined to wander to the banks of the Mississippi and the 
regions westward of it as far as the Ouachita, where their more 
ancient seat appears to have been. Finally the name ‘‘Tunica old 
fields’? clung to a terrain near the Mississippi River in the southern 
part of the county which still preserves the name of the Tunica 
tribe, so that there is reason to believe that their former home 
was farther north than that of any of the others. Indeed there is 
some slight evidence preserved in the De Soto chronicles that, if not 
the Tunica, at least peoples of Tunica speech, extended up to and 
even beyond the Arkansas, and that the Pacaha tribe which plays - 
such a prominent part in the accounts of his expedition was in reality 
of Tunican stock. The part played by Tunican peoples in the ab- 
original history of the lower Mississippi Valley would thus appear to 
have been very great and to render a knowledge of their position 
and affinities of unusual importance. 
So far as we know with any degree of certamty there were but 
three tribes belonging to the Chitimachan group—the Chitimacha, 
Washa, and Chawasha. The first of these lived about Grand Lake 
and on the lower parts of Bayou Teche and the Atchafalaya, and 
from their name for the last of these, Sheti, they probably received 
their own. The Washa and Chawasha, who always lived near each 
other and remained on terms of intimacy from the first we hear of 
them until their disappearance, were upon Bayou La Fourche and 
hunted about in all of the territory between that bayou and the 
Mississippi, the mouth of which was in their lands. On very slight 
evidence I classified these in an earlier bulletin as of Muskhogean 
affinities,” but a manuscript sketch of the Louisiana tribes by Bien- 
ville which has smce been brought to my attention states that they 
spoke the same language as the Chitimacha.* Not a word of the 
speech of either has, however, been preserved, all of our linguistic 
material being derived from the principal tribe. 
The Atakapan group had a wider historic range than either of the 
others. It consisted of a great number of small bands occupying 
the coast of the Gulf of Mexico from Vermillion Bay to Galveston 
Bay, the whole of which latter it included, and extendimg up the 
Trinity River on both sides to a point beyond Bidai Creek. The 
principal bands of Atakapa properly so called were on Vermillion 
Bayou, Mermentou River, Calcasieu River, and the lower Sabine and 
Neches. In the extreme northeast were the Opelousa, not far from 
1 French, Hist. Colls. La., Pt. I, pp. 82-83, 1846. 
2 Bull. 43, Bur. Amer. Ethn., pp. 26-27, Washington, 1911. 
3Int. Journ. Amer. Linguistics, vol. i, no. 1, p. 49, 1917. 
