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Atakapa Indian Tribe
Location
Atakapa. Meaning in Choctaw
and Mobilian, "man eater," because they and some of the Indians west of
them at times ate the flesh of their enemies.
Skunnemoke, the name of a chief, extended to the whole people.
Tûk-pa'-han-yan-ya-di,
Biloxi name.
Yuk'hiti ishak, own name.
Connections
The Atakapa
were originally placed in an independent linguistic stock, including also
the Bidai, Deadose, and probably the Opelousa, but it has now been
determined that they belonged to one family with the Chitimacha, their
eastern neighbors, and probably the Tunican group on the Mississippi, the
whole being called the Tunican stock.
Location
Atakapa bands
extended along the coast of Louisiana and Texas from Vermillion Bayou to
and including Trinity Bay. (See Akokisa under
Texas.)
Subdivisions and Villages
The Atakapa about Trinity Bay and the lower course of Trinity River
were called Akokisa by the Spaniards, but they differed in no respect from
the Atakapa of Lake Charles. There was, however, an eastern Atakapa
dialect which was distinctly different from the one current in the Lake
Charles and Trinity Bay sections and was spoken by two different bands,
one about Vermillion Bay and one on the Mermentou River. There were a
number of small villages but their names are unknown.
History
In 1528 Cabeza de Vaca learned of
the existence of some of these Indians, calling them Han. The portion of the Atakapa living in Louisiana came to the attention
of the French after the latter had established themselves on the
Mississippi River, but it so happened that they had more dealings with the
people of Trinity Bay,
the Akokisa. This was owing in the first place to the romantic adventures
of a French officer, Simars de Belle-Isle, left upon this coast in 1719.
In 1721 Bernard de la Harpe and Captain Beranger accompanied by Belle-Isle
visited the bay and carried some Indians off with them to New Orleans.
Fortunately for us, Beranger recorded
a number of words in their language which prove it to have been almost
identical with the Atakapa of Lake Charles. The Indians subsequently
escaped and are reported to have reached their own country. In 1779 the
band of Atakapa on Vermillion Bayou furnished 60 men and the Mermentou
band 120 men to Galvez for his expedition against the British forts on the
Mississippi. In the latter part of the eighteenth century numerous plots
of land were sold to French Creoles by the Atakapa Indians, but the last
village of the easternmost band was not abandoned until early in the
nineteenth century. The last village of the Atakapa who spoke the eastern
dialect was on the Mermentou and Indians are said to have lived there down
to 1836. The Calcasieu band held together for a longer period, so that in
1908 a few persons were living who once made their homes in the last
native village on Indian Lake or Lake Prien. It was from two of these that
Dr. Gatchet, in January 1885, obtained his Atakapa linguistic material.
(See Gatschet and Swanton, 1932.) Although in 1907 and 1908 I found a few
Indians who knew something of the old tongue, it is today practically
extinct. (See also J. O. Dyer, 1917.) As early as 1747 a Spanish mission
was proposed for the Akokisa Indians, and in 1756, or about that time, it
was established on the left bank of Trinity River, a short distance below
the present Liberty. It was named Nuestra Señora
de In Luz, and near it was the presidio of San Agustin de Ahumada erected
the same year. Before 1772 both of these had been abandoned. In 1805 the
principal Akokisa village was on the west side of Colorado River about 200
miles southwest of Nacogdoches, but there was another between the Neches
and the Sabine. The ultimate fate of the tribe is unknown.
Population
Exclusive of the Akokisa, Mooney (1928) estimates a population of 1,500 Atakapa in
1650, which the Akokisa would perhaps swell to 2,000. In 1747 a Spanish
report gives 300 Akokisa families, a figure which is probably too high. In
1779 the Bayou Vermillion and Mermentou bands had 180 warriors. Sibley
(1832) states that in 1805 there were 80 warriors in the only Atakapa town
remaining but that 30 of these were Hourna and Tunica. The same writer
adds that in 1760-70 the Akokisa numbered 80 men.
Connection in which they have
become noted
The traditional fame of the Atakapa rests upon the
sinister reputation it had acquired as a body of cannibals. After the
French began to settle southwestern Louisiana, they distinguished as the
Atakapas district a section of southern Louisiana including the parishes
of St. Mary, Iberia, Vermillion, St. Martin, and Lafayette, a usage which
continues in commercial reports to the present day. The capital of this
district, the modern St. Martinville, was known as the Atakapas Post. In
Spartanburg County, S. C., is a place called Tucapau, the name of which
may have been taken from this tribe.
Resources:
Notes About the Book:
Source: The Indian Tribes of North America, by John R. Swanton, 1953, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Bulletin 145, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Online Publication: The manuscript was scanned and then ocr'd. Minimal editing
has been done, and readers can and should expect some errors in the textual
output.
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