148 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 73 
Mobile or Pensacola. 1 Nevertheless, what Biedma says of the river 
and his later statement, when the army reached what must have been 
the Alabama, or a stream between it and the Tombigbee, that they 
considered it to be "that which empties into the Bay of Chuse," 2 
along with the further fact that they there heard of the brigantines, 3 
would seem to indicate Mobile. An interesting point in connection 
with this expedition of Maldonado is the mention of the "good 
blanket of sable fur" superior to anything they had seen in Apalachee, 
because it will be recalled that Cabeza de Vaca noticed in the very 
same region "a robe of marten-ermine skin" which he believed to be 
" the finest in the world." 4 The blankets seen by Cabeza de Vaca and 
the companions of De Soto were probably of the same sort, and it is 
likely that the Indians of that particular region had peculiar skill in 
making them. The names Achuse, Ochus, Ichuse, Ychuse recall the 
Hitchiti word Otcisi, "people of a different speech," and it is not 
improbable that the term occurred likewise in Apalachee and was 
applied to this province because the Pensacola and Mobile languages 
were distinct from those spoken east of them. 
In letters written in 1677 this tribe and the Chatot are mentioned 
as peoples living between the Chiska Indians and the Gulf of Mexico, 5 
and from a letter dated May 19, 16S6, and sent by Antonio Matheos, 
lieutenant among the Apalachee, to the governor of Florida, it appears 
that the "Panzacola" were then at war with the Mobile Indians, 6 a 
circumstance which would tend to bear out my theory above ex- 
pressed. Shortly afterwards, however, when a Spanish post was 
established in their country the tribe itself had disappeared. Barcia 
says: 
They say that the province was called Pancacola because anciently a nation of 
Indians inhabited it named Pancocolos, which the neighboring nations destroyed in 
wars, leaving only the name in the province. 7 
Nevertheless, Barcia himself records encounters with Indians in the 
surrounding country by the Spaniards sent to make a reconnoissance 
of the harbor in 1693. His account is as follows : 
On the 11th [of September] starting from the "Punta de Gijon " and navigating in a 
depth of from one to two fathoms, they went along the coast, going northeast with 
easterly wind, and at a distance of about two leagues and a half, it looked as if the 
water had changed its colour. They tasted it and found it sweet, and one-quarter 
of a league further on it was very sweet and they were then sure it was the mouth of a 
river which ran east-southeast, about three-quarters of a league and its width was 
one fourth [of a league], being lost at the distance mentioned. On the north side 
there is a canal, which extends about a pistol shot. They entered the first inlet 
1 See p. 159. ^Serrano y Sanz, Doc. Hist., j>. 197; Lo\very,MSS. 
» Bourne, Narr. of De Soto, II, p. 17. £ Ibid., p. 210. 
3 Ibid., p. 21. 'Barcia, La Florida, p. 316. 
« See p. 145. 
