[Footnote 69: On p. 119, Archologia Americana.]
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.
The area occupied by this family was very extensive. It may be described in a general way as extending from the Savannah River and the Atlantic west to the Mississippi, and from the Gulf of Mexico north to the Tennessee River. All of this territory was held by Muskhogean tribes except the small areas occupied by the Yuchi, Nhtchi, and some small settlements of Shawni.
Upon the northeast Muskhogean limits are indeterminate. The Creek claimed only to the Savannah River; but upon its lower course the Yamasi are believed to have extended east of that river in the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.[70] The territorial line between the Muskhogean family and the Catawba tribe in South Carolina can only be conjectured.
[Footnote 70: Gatschet, Creek Mig. Legend, 1884, vol. 1, p. 62.]
It seems probable that the whole peninsula of Florida was at one time held by tribes of Timuquanan connection; but from 1702 to 1708, when the Apalachi were driven out, the tribes of northern Florida also were forced away by the English. After that time the Seminole and the Yamasi were the only Indians that held possession of the Floridian peninsula.
PRINc.i.p.aL TRIBES.
Alibamu.
Apalachi.
Chicasa.
Choctaw.
Creek or Maskoki proper.
Koasti.
Seminole.
Yamacraw.
Yamasi.
_Population._--There is an Alibamu town on Deep Creek, Indian Territory, an affluent of the Canadian, Indian Territory. Most of the inhabitants are of this tribe. There are Alibamu about 20 miles south of Alexandria, Louisiana, and over one hundred in Polk County, Texas.
So far as known only three women of the Apalachi survived in 1886, and they lived at the Alibamu town above referred to. The United States Census bulletin for 1890 gives the total number of pureblood Choctaw at 9,996, these being princ.i.p.ally at Union Agency, Indian Territory. Of the Chicasa there are 3,464 at the same agency; Creek 9,291; Seminole 2,539; of the latter there are still about 200 left in southern Florida.
There are four families of Koasti, about twenty-five individuals, near the town of Shepherd, San Jacinto County, Texas. Of the Yamasi none are known to survive.
NATCHESAN FAMILY.
> Natches, Gallatin in Trans. and Coll. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 95, 806, 1836 (Natches only). Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 402, 403, 1847.
> Natsches, Berghaus (1845), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848. Ibid., 1852.
> Natchez, Bancroft, Hist. U.S., 248, 1840. Gallatin in Trans. Am.
Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, xcix, 77, 1848 (Natchez only). Latham, Nat.
Hist. Man, 340, 1850 (tends to include Taensas, Pascagoulas, Colap.i.s.sas, Biluxi in same family). Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind.
Tribes, III, 401, 1853 (Natchez only). Keane, App. Stanfords Comp.
(Cent, and So. Am.), 460, 473, 1878 (suggests that it may include the Utchees).
> Naktche, Gatschet, Creek Mig. Legend, I, 34, 1884. Gatschet in Science, 414, April 29, 1887.
> Taensa, Gatschet in The Nation, 383, May 4, 1882. Gatschet in Am.
Antiq., IV, 238, 1882. Gatschet, Creek Mig. Legend, I, 33, 1884.
Gatschet in Science, 414, April 29, 1887 (Taensas only).
The Nahtchi, according to Gallatin, a residue of the well-known nation of that name, came from the banks of the Mississippi, and joined the Creek less than one hundred years ago.[71] The seash.o.r.e from Mobile to the Mississippi was then inhabited by several small tribes, of which the Nahtchi was the princ.i.p.al.
[Footnote 71: Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., 1836, vol. 2, p. 95.]
Before 1730 the tribe lived in the vicinity of Natchez, Miss., along St.
Catherine Creek. After their dispersion by the French in 1730 most of the remainder joined the Chicasa and afterwards the Upper Creek. They are now in Creek and Cherokee Nations, Indian Territory.
The linguistic relations of the language spoken by the Taensa tribe have long been in doubt, and it is probable that they will ever remain so. As no vocabulary or text of this language was known to be in existence, the Grammaire et vocabulaire de la langue Taensa, avec textes traduits et comments par J.-D. Haumont, Parisot, L. Adam, published in Paris in 1882, was received by American linguistic students with peculiar interest. Upon the strength of the linguistic material embodied in the above Mr. Gatschet (loc. cit.) was led to affirm the complete linguistic isolation of the language.
Grave doubts of the authenticity of the grammar and vocabulary have, however, more recently been brought forward.[72] The text contains internal evidences of the fraudulent character, if not of the whole, at least of a large part of the material. So palpable and gross are these that until the character of the whole can better be understood by the inspection of the original ma.n.u.script, alleged to be in Spanish, by a competent expert it will be far safer to reject both the vocabulary and grammar. By so doing we are left without any linguistic evidence whatever of the relations of the Taensa language.
[Footnote 72: D. G. Brinton in Am. Antiquarian, March, 1885, pp. 109-114.]
DIberville, it is true, supplies us with the names of seven Taensa towns which were given by a Taensa Indian who accompanied him; but most of these, according to Mr. Gatschet, were given, in the Chicasa trade jargon or, as termed by the French, the Mobilian trade jargon, which is at least a very natural supposition. Under these circ.u.mstances we can, perhaps, do no better than rely upon the statements of several of the old writers who appear to be unanimous in regarding the language of the Taensa as of Nahtchi connection. Du Pratzs statement to that effect is weakened from the fact that the statement also includes the Shetimasha, the language of which is known from a vocabulary to be totally distinct not only from the Nahtchi but from any other. To supplement Du Pratzs testimony, such as it is, we have the statements of M. de Montigny, the missionary who affirmed the affinity of the Taensa language to that of the Nahtchi, before he had visited the latter in 1699, and of Father Gravier, who also visited them. For the present, therefore, the Taensa language is considered to be a branch of the Nahtchi.
The Taensa formerly dwelt upon the Mississippi, above and close to the Nahtchi. Early in the history of the French settlements a portion of the Taensa, pressed upon by the Chicasa, fled and were settled by the French upon Mobile Bay.
PRINc.i.p.aL TRIBES.
Nahtchi.
Taensa.
_Population._--There still are four Nahtchi among the Creek in Indian Territory and a number in the Cheroki Hills near the Missouri border.
PALAIHNIHAN FAMILY.
= Palaihnih, Hale in U.S. Expl. Expd., VI, 218, 569, 1846 (used in family sense).
= Palaik, Hale in U.S. Expl. Expd., VI, 199, 218, 569, 1846 (southeast of Lutuami in Oregon), Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, 18, 77, 1848. Latham, Nat. Hist. Man., 325, 1850 (southeast of Lutuami). Berghaus (1851), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1852. Latham in Proc. Philolog. Soc. Lond., VI, 82, 1854 (cites Hales vocab). Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 74, 1856 (has Shoshoni affinities).
Latham, Opuscula, 310, 341, 1860. Latham, El. Comp. Phil., 407, 1862.
= Palainih, Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, c, 1848.
(after Hale). Berghaus (1851), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1852.
= Pulairih, Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 402, 1853 (obvious typographical error; quotes Hales Palaiks).
= Pit River, Powers in Overland Monthly, 412, May, 1874 (three princ.i.p.al tribes: Achomwes, Hamefcuttelies, Astakaywas or Astakywich). Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 164, 1877 (gives habitat; quotes Hale for tribes). Gatschet in Beach, Ind. Misc., 439, 1877.
= A-cho-m-wi, Powell in Cont. N.A. Eth., III, 601, 1877 (vocabs. of A-cho-m-wi and Lutuami). Powers in ibid., 267 (general account of tribes; A-cho-m-wi, Hu-m-whi, Es-ta-ke-wach, Han-te-wa, Chu-m-wa, A-tu-a-mih, Il-m-wi).
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