Chitimacha
(Choctaw: chúti'cooking pot' másha
'they possess': `they have cooking vessels'). A tribe, forming the
Chitimachan linguistic family, whose earliest known habitat was the shores
of Grand lake, formerly Lake of the Shetimasha, and the banks of Grand
river, La. Some 16 or 18 of the tribe were living on Grand river in 1881,
but the majority, about 35, lived at Charenton, on the south side of Bayou
Tèche, in St Mary's parish, about 10
miles from the gulf. The remnant resides in the same district, but the
present population is not known. The name of these Indians for themselves
is Pántch-pinunkansh, 'men altogether
red,' a designation apparently applied after the advent of the whites. The
Chitimacha came into notice soon after the French settled Louisiana,
through he murder by one of their men of the missionary St Cosme on the
Mississippi in 1706. This was followed by protracted war with the French,
who compelled them to sue for peace, which was granted by Bienville on
condition that the head of the murderer be brought to him; this one, peace
was concluded. The tribe then must have been reduced to a small umber of
warriors, though Le Page du Pratz, who was present at the final ceremony,
says they arrived at the meeting place in many pirogues. Little is known
in regard to their customs. Fish and the roots of native plants
constituted their food, but later they planted maize and sweet potatoes.
They were strict monogamists, and though the women appear to the had
considerable authority in their government, there were no indications of
totems or the gentile system among them. The men wore their hair long,
with a piece of lead at the end of the queue, and tattooed their arms,
legs, and faces. The noonday still is said to have been their principal
deity. The dead were buried in graves, and after the flesh had decayed,
the bones were taken up and reinterred.
Their villages or former settlements so far as known
were:
Chitimacha villages were situated also
oil the site of Donaldsonville, Ascension parish, on the west bank of the
Mississippi (here St Cosine was murdered in 1706), and at the mouth of
Bayou Lafourche.
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