SwANTON] INiDIANS OP THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITE'D STATES 85 



is probable that these consisted largely, if not entirely, of the Indians 

 who had lived on the east coast, and among them the Ais. Adair 

 says that the fugitives included 30 men. 



Ais populatio7i. — No figures of any kind exist other than mention 

 of the fact, above noted, that in 1597 the chief of Ais came out to 

 meet Governor Mendez de Cango with 15 canoes and 80 Indians, and 

 the general statement that it was the most populous tribe on the south- 

 east coast. For this tribe, the Tekesta, and the other small tribes of 

 that section, Mooney made an estimate of 1,000 as of 1650. It is prob- 

 able that the "Costa Indians" in the missions about St. Augustine in 

 the first half of the eighteenth century were drawn from this and the 

 other tribes formerly living near them. In 1726, 88 of these were 

 reported; in 1728, 52. (See references from Romans (1775) and 

 Adair (1775) above.) 



AKOKISA 



This name was given by the Spaniards to the Atakapa Indians in 

 Texas, in particular to those about Galveston and Trinity Bays and on 

 Trinity River. The Han, whom Cabez de Vaca placed in 1528 on 

 the eastern end of an island believed to be Galveston Island, were 

 probably a part of these people, the name given being perhaps a 

 synonym of an, the Atakapa and Akokisa word for "house." In 1703, 

 according to the French traveler Penicaut, whose dates, however, are 

 always open to suspicion, two Frenchmen sent on an exploring expe- 

 dition by Bienville returned and reported that they had reached a 

 tribe of cannibals, and these may have been the Akokisa, though, on 

 the other hand, they may not have gotten beyond the Atakapa proper. 

 In 1719 a French vessel named Marechal-d-Estees touched on this 

 coast and landed five officers who had volunteered to refill the water 

 casks. They encountered Indians, however, and only one of them, 

 an ensign named Simars de Belle-Isle, escaped with his life. This 

 man lived among the Akokisa for more than a year as a captive, 

 and was reduced to the last stage of want and misery when a letter 

 he had written fell into the hands of St. Denis, commandant at Natch- 

 itoches, who sent some Natchitoches Indians to rescue him and bring 

 him to that post. Belle-Isle called the Akokisa "Caux," probably from 

 Atakapa ko-i, "speech," or "language." He reached Natchitoches in 

 February 1721, and passed from there to Biloxi, where Bienville en- 

 listed him as interpreter on the Subtile, in which Bernard de la Harpe 

 was about to set out for the Texas coast, the captain being Jean 

 Beranger. They sailed August 17, and reached Galveston Bay 10 

 days later, where they opened communication with the Indians and, 

 on their return, carried away nine of them. From these Indians 

 Beranger took down the only vocabulary of Akokisa words now in 

 existence. They subsequently escaped and tried to return to their 



