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56-574: They included several distinct bands. They spoke the Atakapa language , which was a linguistic isolate . After 1762, when Louisiana was transferred to Spain following French defeat in the Seven Years' War , little was written about the Atakapa as a people. Due to a high rate of deaths from infectious epidemics of the late 18th century, they ceased to function as a people. Survivors generally joined

112-592: A Chitimacha woman as a companion. She likely bore his children. In Natchez, he learned the language of the Natchez people , whose homeland this was, and befriended local native leaders. When Le Page wrote his memoir more than a decade after returning to France, he used the verbatim words of many of his Native informants, rather than describing the "manners and customs of the Indians" in the detached fashion of so many later colonial authors. Because of his own interest in

168-533: A Tunican language family that would include Atakapa, Tunica , and Chitimacha . Mary Haas later expanded this into the Gulf language family with the addition of the Muskogean languages . As of 2001, linguists generally do not consider these proposed families as proven. Atakapa oral history says that they originated from the sea. An ancestral prophet laid out the rules of conduct. The first European contact with

224-631: A corrupted form of the local chief Nementou. "Plaquemine," as in Bayou Plaquemine Brûlée and Plaquemines Parish , is derived from the Atakapa word pikamin , meaning ' persimmon '. Bayou Nezpiqué was named for an Atakapan who had a tattooed nose. Bayou Queue de Tortue was believed to have been named for Chief Celestine La Tortue of the Atakapas nation. The name Calcasieu comes through French from an Atakapa name, Katkōsh Yōk ('Crying Eagle'). The city of Lafayette, Louisiana ,

280-402: A farm; consequently, we are very careful never to frighten them. When they stay on a prairie or in a forest, we camp near them in order to accustom them to seeing us, and we follow all their wanderings so that they cannot get away from us. We use their meat for food and their skins for clothing. I have been living with these people for about eleven years; I am happy and satisfied here, and have not

336-434: A horse [for curing her]"). With occasional exceptions, adjectives follow the nouns they describe. Adverbs follow nouns and adjectives, but precede verbs. Atakapa marks only the locative case . The language has four locative suffixes, in addition to a series of locative postpositions. These suffixes and postpositions may be placed after nouns, adjectives, and demonstratives. Swanton (1919) asserts that noun incorporation

392-617: A land bridge from Asia. Le Page's book was carried as a guide by the Lewis and Clark Expedition as it explored the Louisiana Purchase starting in 1804. Le Page Du Pratz was born in 1695 either in the Netherlands or France, and was raised in the latter country. He was educated, graduating from a French cours de mathematiques, and identified as an engineer and professional architect. Serving with King Louis XIV 's dragoons in

448-519: A long time past we have heard of no such barbarity among them. Louis LeClerc Milfort, a Frenchman who spent 20 years living with and traveling among the Muscogee (Creek), came upon the Atakapa in 1781 during his travels. He wrote: The forest we were then in was thick enough so that none of my men could be seen. I formed them into three detachments, and arranged them in such a way as to surround these savages, and to leave them no way of retreat except by

504-531: A rather specific order. Person marking is one of the only instances of fusion within the language, fusing both person and number. Nouns have only a handful of suffixes and usually take only one suffix at a time. The language is largely head-marking ; however, reduplication of an adjectival stem tends to show dependent-marking , as it often expresses the plurality of the noun it describes. Object pronouns are prefixed to verbs, while subject pronouns are suffixed. There are independent forms of each pronoun as well: in

560-632: A small vocabulary from captive speakers in Galveston Bay . John Swanton argued that the Béranger vocabulary represented the Akokisa language, spoken by a people who lived somewhat inland from Galveston Bay. There is little evidence to support his assertion. Atakapa has five vowels as presented in Swadesh (1946). Vowel length is contrastive in Atakapa. According to Swadesh (1946), Atakapa has

616-400: Is a productive process in Atakapa. Atakapa exhibits strict subject-object-verb word order. While verbs are typically found in sentence-final position, it is common for adjuncts , or even subordinate clauses , to follow the verb of the principal clause . The suffixes -ne and -n are used to indicate the subordination of a clause to the main clause, as in tsanuk micat penene ("she gave

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672-403: Is believed that most Western Atakapa tribes or subdivisions were decimated by the 1850s, mainly from infectious disease and poverty. In 1908, nine known Atakapa descendants were identified. Armojean Reon (ca. 1873–1925) of Lake Charles, Louisiana , was noted as a fluent Atakapa speaker. In the 1920s, ethnologists Albert Gatshet and John Swanton studied the language and published A Dictionary of

728-688: Is known from a French-Atakapa glossary with 287 entries, compiled in 1802 by Martin Duralde. The speakers interviewed by Duralde lived in the easternmost part of Atakapa territory, around Poste des Attakapas (now Saint Martinville ). Western Atakapa is the better-attested of the two varieties. In 1885, Albert Gatschet collected words, sentences, and texts from two native Atakapa speakers, Louison Huntington and Delilah Moss at Lake Charles, Louisiana . John R. Swanton worked with another two speakers near Lake Charles: Teet Verdine in 1907, and Armojean Reon in 1908. Additionally, in 1721, Jean Béranger collected

784-566: Is planning a series of trails, funded by the Federal Highway Administration , to be called the "Atakapa–Ishak Trail". It will consist of a bike trail connecting downtown areas along the bayous Vermilion and Teche, which are now accessible only by foot or boat. Atakapa language Atakapa ( / ə ˈ t æ k ə p ə , - p ɑː / , natively Yukhiti ) is an extinct language isolate native to southwestern Louisiana and nearby coastal eastern Texas . It

840-687: Is present in Atakapa, but he provides no examples of this. Three demonstratives serve as deictics in Atakapa: Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz (1695?–1775) was a French ethnographer , historian, and naturalist who is best known for his Histoire de la Louisiane . It was first published in twelve installments from 1751 to 1753 in the Journal Economique , then completely in three volumes in Paris in 1758. After their victory in

896-455: Is the case, argues Swadesh, then words containing final /n/ must have arrived in a later period. Consonant clusters consisting of a stop followed by a sibilant — themselves arising from vowel epenthesis — are generally contracted to /c/. For example, kec-k ("liver") arose from * keks , which arose from epenthesis and final-vowel deletion processes in *kekesi , which itself is the reduplicated form of * kesi . However, there are words in which

952-731: The Akokisa . Among the survivors was Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca who later wrote an account of several years living among the Indians of the Texas coast. In 1703, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne , the French governor of La Louisiane , sent three men to explore the Gulf Coast west of the Mississippi River . The seventh nation they encountered were the Atakapa, who captured, killed and cannibalized one member of their party. In 1714 this tribe

1008-680: The Atakapa Ishak Tribe of Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana , also called the Atakapa Ishak Nation, based in Lake Charles, Louisiana obtained nonprofit status in 2008 as an "ethnic awareness" organization. They also refer to themselves as the Atakapa-Ishak Nation and met en masse on October 28, 2006. The Atakapas Ishak Nation of Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana unsuccessfully petitioned

1064-656: The Caddo , Koasati , and other neighboring peoples, although they kept some traditions. Some culturally distinct Atakapan descendants survived into the early 20th century. The Atakapa called themselves the Ishak / iː ˈ ʃ æ k / , which translates as "the people." Their name was also spelled Atacapaze , Atalapa , Attakapa , Attakapas , or Attacapa . Atakapa is either a Choctaw or Mobilian term meaning "eater of human flesh". The Choctaw used this term due to their practice of ritual cannibalism . Europeans encountered

1120-522: The Caribbean , which was developed by slave labor for sugar cane plantations. Le Page du Pratz also wrote about the supposed Samba rebellion of 1731, in which he allegedly participated in arresting the conspiratorial slaves. Le Page du Pratz waited more than fifteen years after his return to France before he wrote and published his memoir of Louisiana. The Memoire sur la Louisiane was published by installments between September 1751 and February 1753 in

1176-912: The French Army , he entered conflict in Germany in 1713 during the War of the Spanish Succession . On 25 May 1718, Le Page left La Rochelle , France, with 800 men on one of three ships bound for Louisiana. He arrived on 25 August 1718. Le Page lived in La Louisiane from 1718 to 1734; about half of the period, 1720 to 1728, he lived near Fort Rosalie and Natchez on the Mississippi River. He had land and cultivated tobacco; in New Orleans he had bought two slaves , as well as

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1232-744: The Journal Oeconomique (Economic Journal), a Paris periodical devoted to scientific and commercial topics. In 1758, the three octavo volumes of the Histoire de la Louisiane were published. Part of the book was devoted to his ethnographic descriptions of the Native peoples of Louisiana, particularly the Natchez. His account included descriptions of the funeral of the Tattooed Serpent, the second-highest ranking chief, with drawings of

1288-653: The Mississippian . Atakapa-speaking peoples are called Atakapan, while Atakapa refers to a specific tribe. Atakapa-speaking peoples were divided into bands which were represented by totems , such as snake, alligator, and other natural life. The Eastern Atakapa (Hiyekiti Ishak, "Sunrise People") groups lived in present-day Acadiana parishes in southwestern Louisiana and are organized as three major regional bands: The Western Atakapa (Hikike Ishak, "Sunset People") resided in southeastern Texas. They were organized as follows. Different groups claiming to be descendants of

1344-544: The Seven Years' War , the British published part of it in translation in 1763. It has never been fully translated into English. The memoir recounts Le Page's years in the Louisiana colony from 1718 to 1734, when he learned the Natchez language and befriended native leaders. He gives lengthy descriptions of Natchez society and its culture, including the funeral rituals associated with the 1725 death of Tattooed Serpent ,

1400-902: The Atakapa Language in 1932. The Atakapan ate shellfish and fish. The women gathered bird eggs, the American lotus ( Nelumbo lutea ) for its roots and seeds, as well as other wild plants. The men hunted deer , bear , and bison , which provided meat, fat , and hides . The women cultivated varieties of maize . They processed the meats, bones and skins to prepare food for storage, as well as to make clothing, tent covers, tools, sewing materials, arrow cases, bridles and rigging for horses, and other necessary items for their survival. The men made their tools for hunting and fishing: bows and arrows, fish spears with bone-tipped points, and flint -tipped spears. They used poisons to catch fish, caught flounder by torchlight, and speared alligators in

1456-464: The Atakapa from 1719 to 1721. He described Atakapa feasts including consumption of human flesh, which he observed firsthand. The practice of cannibalism likely had a religious, ritualistic basis. French Jesuit missionaries urged the Atakapa to end this practice. The French historian Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz lived in Louisiana from 1718 to 1734. He wrote: Along the west coast, not far from

1512-555: The Atakapa have created several organizations, and some have unsuccessfully petitioned Louisiana, Texas, and the United States for status as a recognized tribe. A member of the "Atakapa Indian de Creole Nation," claiming to be trustee, monarch, and deity, filed a number of lawsuits in federal court claiming, among other things, that the governments of Louisiana and the United States seek to "monopolize intergalactic foreign trade." The suits were dismissed as frivolous. Another group,

1568-625: The Atakapa may have been in 1528 by survivors of the Spanish Pánfilo de Narváez expedition. These men in Florida had made two barges, in an attempt to sail to Mexico, and these were blown ashore on the Gulf Coast. One group of survivors met the Karankawa , while the other probably landed on Galveston Island . The latter recorded meeting a group who called themselves the Han, who may have been

1624-789: The Atakapan as cannibals. He noted that they traditionally flattened their skulls frontally and not occipitally, a practice opposite to that of neighboring tribes, such as the Natchez Nation . The Atakapa traded with the Chitimacha tribe. In the early 18th century, some Atakapa married into the Houma tribe of Louisiana. Members of the Tunica-Biloxi tribe joined the Atakapa tribe in the late 18th century. John R. Swanton recorded that only 175 Atakapa lived in Louisiana in 1805. It

1680-623: The Atakapas Nation; the other half is farther on. We are in the habit of dividing ourselves into two or three groups in order to follow the buffalo , which in the spring go back into the west, and in autumn come down into these parts; there are herds of these buffalo, which go sometimes as far as the Missouri ; we kill them with arrows; our young hunters are very skilful at this hunting. You understand, moreover, that these animals are in very great numbers, and as tame as if they were raised on

1736-477: The Choctaw first during their exploration, and adopted their name for this people to the west. The peoples lived in river valleys, along lake shores, and coasts from present-day Vermilion Bay , Louisiana to Galveston Bay, Texas . The Atakapa language was a language isolate , once spoken along the Louisiana and East Texas coast and believed extinct since the mid-20th century. John R. Swanton in 1919 proposed

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1792-627: The Pacific coast, Moncacht-Apé heard Native oral histories that referred to an ancient land bridge from Asia. Le Page lived at Natchez from 1720 to 1728 under the colonization scheme organized by John Law and the Company of the Indies . His familiarity with the local Natchez, and knowledge of their language and customs, is the basis for some of the unique aspects of his writings. He returned to New Orleans in 1728 to take an appointment as manager of

1848-501: The US federal government for recognition on February 2, 2007. These organizations are not federally recognized or state-recognized as Native American tribes. The names of present-day towns in the region can be traced to the Ishak; they are derived both from their language and from French transliteration of the names of their prominent leaders and names of places. The town of Mermentau is

1904-507: The coda. Stress is "a purely mechanical function of phrase rhythm" in Atakapa; it is generally the final syllable of a phrase that receives stress. The Atakapa language is a mostly agglutinative , somewhat polysynthetic language of the templatic type. This meaning that the language stacks (primarily within the verbal complex) a number of affixes to express locatives , tense , aspect , modality , valency adjustment , and person/number (as both subject and object), which are assembled in

1960-501: The company's plantation across from the river from the city; he managed 200 slaves in the cultivation of tobacco. By this move, he avoided being killed in the Natchez revolt of 1729. Tensions and retaliatory attacks had escalated as European settlers encroached on Indian territory. During the uprising by the Natchez, Chickasaw , and Yazoo, which Le Page described in detail, the Natives destroyed Fort Rosalie and killed nearly all of

2016-418: The consonants presented in the following chart. Underlying /ŋ/ surfaces as [k] when it appears at the end of a syllable. Swadesh further notes that /m/ often surfaces as [n] or [ŋ] word-finally in some adjectives, but "irregular variations in [Gatschet's] writing" preclude him from settling on any further conditions for this. Additionally, it is unclear whether /n/ is indeed a distinct phoneme from /ŋ/; if this

2072-528: The existence of a reflexive prefix hat- and a reciprocal prefix hak-. However, the reflexive form may be a circumfix rather than a prefix: Kaufman cites the example of hat-yul-šo ("paint themselves"), in which both hat- and -šo indicate reflexivity. There are multiple ways to indicate a noun's plurality in Atakapa: According to Swanton (1919), a noun-forming affix -nen or -nan exists in Atakapa. The full order of morphemes within

2128-610: The eye. The people put alligator oil on exposed skin to repel mosquitoes . The Bidai snared game and trapped animals in cane pens. By 1719, the Atakapan had obtained horses and were hunting bison from horseback. They used dugout canoes to navigate the bayous and close to shore, but did not venture far into the ocean. In the summer, families moved to the coast. In winters, they moved inland and lived in villages of houses made of pole and thatch. The Bidai lived in bearskin tents. The homes of chiefs and medicine men were erected on earthwork mounds made by several previous cultures including

2184-475: The first person singular and plural, this form appears to be distinct from either affix, but in the second and third persons, the affixes seem to be related to the independent forms. Grammatical gender appears not to occur in Atakapa, though evidence for it in nearby languages (e.g. Chitimacha) has been found. The following table of pronominal forms is presented in Swanton (1919). In addition, Swanton notes

2240-445: The forest, I saw one of these savages coming straight toward me: at first sight, I recognized that he did not belong to the Atakapas nation; he addressed me politely and in an easy manner, unusual among these savages. He offered food and drink for my warriors which I accepted, while expressing to him my gratitude. Meat was served to my entire detachment; and during the time of about six hours that I remained with this man, I learned that he

2296-526: The funeral procession and people offering themselves for sacrifice. Other sections described the history of the colony, from the Spanish and French explorers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through establishment of the French settlements along the Mississippi . In 1763, after the British had defeated France in the Seven Years' War , an English translation of part of Le Page du Pratz's work

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2352-689: The land between Vermilion River and Bayou Teche from the Eastern Atakapa Chief Kinemo. Shortly after that a rival Indian tribe, the Opelousa , coming from the area between the Atchafalaya and Sabine rivers, exterminated the Eastern Atakapa. They had occupied the area between Atchafalaya River and Bayou Nezpique (Attakapas Territory). William Byrd Powell (1799–1867), a medical doctor and physiologist , regarded

2408-579: The least desire to return to Europe. I have six children whom I love a great deal, and with whom I want to end my days." When my warriors were rested and refreshed, I took leave of Joseph and of the Atakapas, while assuring them of my desire to be able to make some returns for their friendly welcome, and I resumed my Journey. In 1760, the French Gabriel Fuselier de la Claire came into the Attakapas Territory, and bought all

2464-668: The male French colonists there. The Native Americans did not kill enslaved Africans or French women and children, whom they took as captives. After the massacre, King Louis XV of France ended the concession of the Company of the Indies and seized control of the plantation which Le Page was managing. The French Army , bolstered by Indian allies, retaliated and attacked, putting down the Natchez Rebellion by 1731. They sold several hundred captive Indians into slavery and transported them to their colony of Saint-Domingue in

2520-552: The origins of Native Americans, Le Page was especially attentive to the account by the Yazoo explorer Moncacht-Apé . He had traveled to the Pacific coast and back (a century before the later Lewis and Clark Expedition sponsored by the young United States). Le Page devoted three entire chapters to the Yazoo man's account of his travels. Moncacht-Apé was curious about the origins of his people and traveled to learn more. When he reached

2576-486: The pond. I then made them all move forward, and I sent ahead a subordinate chief to ascertain what nation these savages belonged to, and what would be their intentions toward us. We were soon assured that they were Atakapas, who, as soon as they saw us, far from seeking to defend themselves, made us signs of peace and friendship. There were one hundred and eighty [180] of them of both sexes, busy, as we suspected, smoke-drying meat. As soon as my three detachments had emerged from

2632-460: The proposal by adding Natchez and the Muskogean languages , a hypothesis known as Gulf . These proposed families have not been proven. The similarities between Atakapa and Chitimacha, at least, may be attributable to periods of "intense contact [between speakers of the two languages] owing to their geographic proximity." According to Swanton (1929) and Goddard (1996), Atakapa could be classified into Eastern and Western varieties. Eastern Atakapa

2688-574: The sea, inhabit the nation called Atacapas, that is, Man-Eaters, being so called by the other nations on account of their detestable custom of eating their enemies, or such as they believe to be their enemies. In the vast country there are no other cannibals to be met with besides the Atacapas; and since the French have gone among them, they have raised in them so great a horror of that abominable practice of devouring creatures of their own species, that they have promised to leave it off: and, accordingly, for

2744-526: The second-highest ranking chief among the people. It also includes his account of Moncacht-Apé , a Yazoo explorer who told him of completing travel to the Pacific Coast and back, likely in the late 17th or early 18th century. Through this traveler, Le Page learned of oral traditions held by indigenous people of the West Coast. They told of the first Native Americans reaching North America by

2800-412: The suffix - kš appears, suggesting that this contraction rule ran its course in an earlier period. The typical Atakapa syllable is of the structure CVC. Swanton (1929) observes that clusters of more than two consonants are rare in the language. From his analysis of Gatschet's data, he concludes that consonant clusters of any size are not permitted in the syllable onset, but that they are permitted in

2856-469: The torture that they made them endure when they had come to take possession of Mexico ; that if some Englishmen or Frenchmen happened to be lost in this bay region, the Atakapas welcomed them with kindness, would give them hospitality; and if they did not wish to remain with them they had them taken to the Akancas, from where they could easily go to New Orleans . He told me: "You see here about one-half of

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2912-401: The verb complex is: It is unclear whether or not a distinct class of auxiliary verbs exists in Atakapa; the difference between a stem-plus-auxiliary construction and a two-verb-serialization construction is not well marked. Additionally, there is no mention of the assertive suffix -š in Swanton's work; Kaufman (2014) derives it by analogizing Atakapa and Chitimacha . Verb serialization

2968-596: Was a European; that he had been a Jesuit ; and that having gone into Mexico, these people had chosen him as their chief. He spoke French rather well. He told me that his name was Joseph; but I did not learn from what part of Europe he came. He informed me that the name Atakapas, which means eaters of men, had been given to this nation by the Spaniards because every time they caught one of them, they would roast him alive, but that they did not eat them; that they acted in this way toward this nation to avenge their ancestors for

3024-753: Was one of 14 that were recorded as coming to Jean-Michel de Lepinay , who was acting French governor of Louisiana between 1717 and 1718, while he was fortifying Dauphin Island, Alabama . The Choctaw told the French settlers about the "People of the West," who represented subdivisions or tribes. The French referred to them as les sauvages . The Choctaw used the name Atakapa, meaning "people eater" ( hattak 'person', apa 'to eat'), for them. It referred to their practice of ritual cannibalism related to warfare. A French explorer, Francois Simars de Bellisle , lived among

3080-540: Was published in London. The publishers changed the title, releasing it as The History of Louisiana, or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina . This appeared to subordinate the former French colony to its British neighbors to the east, which had essentially claimed all lands west of each colony. The preface asserted that the British "nation may now reap some advantages from those countries... by learning from

3136-563: Was spoken by the Atakapa people (also known as Ishak , after their word for "the people"). The language became extinct in the early 20th century. While considered an isolate, there have been attempts to connect Atakapa with other languages of the Southeast. In 1919 John R. Swanton proposed a Tunican language family that would include Atakapa, Tunica , and Chitimacha ; Morris Swadesh would later provide work focusing on connections between Atakapa and Chitimacha. Mary Haas later expanded

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