Koassáti Indian Tribe

The ancient seat of this tribe was in Hawkins’ time (1799), on the right or northern bank of Alabama River, three miles below the confluence of Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers. Coosada, Elmore County, Alabama, is built on the same spot. “They are not Creeks,” says Hawkins (Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country $$$, pp. 35, 1799.), although they conform to their ceremonies; a part of this town moved lately beyond the Mississippi, and have settled there.” G. W. Stidham, who visited their settlement in Polk county, Texas, during the Secession war, states that they lived there east of the Alibamu, numbered about 200 persons, were pure-blooded and very superstitious. Some Creek Indians are with them, who formerly lived in Florida, between the Seminoles and the Lower Creeks.

Their tribal name is differently spelt: Coosadas, Koösati, Kosádi, Coushatees, etc. Milfort, Mem. p. 265, writes it Coussehaté. This tribe must not be confounded with the Conshacs, q. v.

From an Alibamu Indian, Sekopechi, we have a statement on the languages spoken by the people of the Creek confederacy (Schoolcraft, Indians, I, 266 sq.): “The Muskogees speak six different dialects: Muskogee, Hitchitee, Nauchee, Euchee, Alabama and Aquassawtee, but all of them generally understand the Muskogee language.” This seems to indicate that the Alibamu dialect differs from Koassáti, for this is meant by Aquassawtee; but the vocabularies of General Albert Pike show that both forms of speech are practically one and the same language.

Historic notices of this tribe after its emigration to western parts were collected by Prof. Buschmann, Spuren d. aztek. Sprache, p. 430. Many Koassáti live scattered among the Creeks in the Creek Nation, Indian Territory, at Yufála, for instance.

Witumka, on Coosa River, spoke, according to Bartram, the “Stincard” language, and was a town of the Alibamu division. Cf. List of Creek Settlements.

 


Collection:
Gatschet, Albert S. A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians. Pub. D.G. Brinton, Philadelphia, 1884.

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