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Allophylic Languages Among Southern Tribes
The southern tribes
which I suspect of speaking or having spoken
allophylic languages, are the Bidai, the
Koroa, the Westo and Stono Indians.
Bidai Indians
Rev. Morse, in his
Report to the Government (1822), states that
their home is on the western or right side
of Trinity river, Texas, sixty-five miles
above its mouth, and that they count one
hundred and twenty people. In 1850 a small
settlement of five or six Bidai families
existed on Lower Sabine River.
The Opelousas of
Louisiana and the Cances of Texas spoke
languages differing from all others around
them.1
Koroa Indians
The earliest home of
this tribe, which figures extensively in
French colonial history, is a mountainous
tract on the western shore of Mississippi
River, eight leagues above the Natchez
landing. They were visited there, early in
1682, by the explorer, C. de la Salle, who
noticed the compression of their skulls (Margry
I, 558. 566). They were a warlike and
determined people of hunters. In 1705 a
party of them, hired by the French priest
Foucault to convey him by water to the
Yazoos, murderously dispatched him with two
other Frenchmen (Pénicaut, in Margry V,
458). A companion of C. de la Salle (in
1682) noticed that the "language of the Coroa differed from
that of the Tinsa and Natche," but that in
his opinion their manners and customs were
the same (Margry I, 558).
Koroas afterward figure
as one of the tribes settled on Yazoo River,
formerly called also River of the Chicasa,
and are mentioned there by D. Coxe, Carolana
(1742), p. 10, as Kourouas. They were then
the allies of the Chicasa, but afterward
merged in the Cha’hta people, who call them
Kólwa, Kúlua. Allen Wright descended from a
grandfather of this tribe, states that the
term is neither Cha’hta nor Chicasa, and
that the Koroa spoke a language differing
entirely from Cha’hta.2 A place Kolua is now
in Coahoma county, probably far distant from
the ancient home of this tribe. The origin
of the name is unknown; the Cha’hta word: ka
n lo strong, powerful, presents some analogy
in sound.
The Westo Indians And Stono
Indians
Lived in the vicinity
of the English colony at Charleston, South
Carolina. Their predatory habits made them
particularly troublesome in 1669-1671 and in
1674, when they had to be repulsed by an
army of volunteers. The Stonos must have
lived north of the colony, or on the upper
course of some river, for, in 1674, they are
described as "coming down" (Hewat, Histor.
Account of S. C. and Ga., London 1779; I,
51. 77) Stono Inlet is the name of a cove
near Charleston. Both tribes also met with
disastrous reverses at the hands of the
Savannah Indians, probably the Yamassi
(Archdale). They are both mentioned as
having belonged to the Kataba confederacy,
but this does not by any means prove that
they spoke Kataba or a dialect of it. As to
the name, the Westo Indians may be
identified with the Oustacs of Lederer (who
are reported as being at war with the
Usherees), and with the Hostaqua of Rene de
Laudonniere, who mentions them as
forming a confederacy under a paracusi in
the northern parts of the "Floridian"
territory. Possibly the Creek word ō’sta
four, in the sense of "four allied tribes,"
has given origin to this tribal name (ostáka
in Alibamu).
The affinity of the extinct Congaree Indians, on
Congaree River, is doubtful also; Lawson
relates that they did not understand the
speech of the Waterees and Chicarees. Cf.
Kataba. Owing to the inactivity of the local
historians, our ethnographic information on
the North and South Carolina Indians is
extremely meager and unsatisfactory.
Footnotes:
- American State
Papers, I, pp. 722-24.
- This is corroborated by the fact
that the sound R did exist in the Koroa language: Jefferys (1761), I, 163.
Back to:
Southern Families of Indians
Notes About Book:
Source: Gatschet, Albert S., A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians.
Pub.
D.G. Brinton, Philadelphia, 1884.
Notes about Online Publication: This manuscript has been ocr'd and heavily
edited. Many of the Native American words have been reproduced as clearly as
online publication will allow us, but not all are exactly the way they were in
the original work. The structure of this manuscript has been changed to allow
better online presentation.
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