CHITIMACHA
Chitimacha—
The Chitimacha are the only Louisiana Indians known to currently live in the vicinity of their ancestral homelands. It is evident they were one of the largest tribes in Louisiana. Their large population was probably the result of a favorable environment which provided an abundant food supply of plants, animals and marine life without the necessity of extensive hunting or fishing expeditions, or the necessity to periodically abandon their village sites for lack of food. The men did the hunting and fishing.
Although the women planted such crops as maize and sweet potatoes, many of their foods grew wild. Foods such as beans, wild potatoes, pond lily seeds, palmetto grains, rhizoma of common sagittaria and large leaf sagittaria, persimmons, strawberries, blackberries, mulberries, white berries, many kinds of tree fruits, pumpkins, and several others grew close to their villages.
The Chitimacha inhabited two groups of villages. One group was located along the upper reaches of Bayou Lafourche near the Mississippi River while the other group was located on Grand Lake and the Bayou Teche area. These areas consist of many bayous and swamps which were easy to protect.
They made their houses from poles covered with palmetto leaves on the roofs and walls. All the necessary building materials were readily available and easily replaced when damaged or destroyed by storms and hurricanes.
Women exerted strong influence in the tribe’s affairs because important political positions were available to them. Usually the men controlled the governmental offices, however if a chief died his widow could assume his responsibilities if she were a capable leader. Women could also work as medicine men. Only the leadership of religious affairs was denied them.
The political system was run by a group of powerful men. One head chief controlled the affairs of the entire confederation, with sub-chiefs governing the outlying villages. These leaders inherited their offices, lived in large homes, and carried heavily decorated peacepipes to all ceremonies and social affairs as reminders of their importance. They ruled by personal edicts, which were enforced by sub-administrators appointed especially for that purpose. They maintained groups of warriors to protect them, and to defend their villages against raids by neighboring tribes.
The head chief, sub-chiefs, sub-administrators and war leaders were entrenched by the rules of a rigidly stratified society. The Chitimacha were the only southeastern tribe with a true caste system. The leaders and their respective families comprised the “noble class”; all others belonged to the “commoner” class. Noblemen addressed commoners in popular language, but commoners spoke to noblemen only in terms that were used solely for that purpose. With rare exceptions, noblemen married only noblemen because the husband joined the clan of the wife, therefore he would become a commoner. A nobleman was inclined to remain unwed if no woman of his class was free to marry.
Religious affairs were controlled by Holy Men (and assistants who were to succeed them after their deaths). Holy Men were in charge of the sacred ceremonies of their respective clans. They had the responsibility of perpetuating the ancient parables and stories of miraculous events which embodied the moral codes of their villages, and which contained beliefs concerning man’s kinship to nature and to nature’s creatures.
The Chitimacha men wore long hair, weighted with pieces of lead to hold their heads erect. They wore necklaces, bracelets and rings made of copper, gold and silver. Women wore their hair in braids, used makeup of red and white dyes, and wore bracelets, earrings and finger rings.
Their aesthetic appreciation is revealed in their manufacture of objects from shells and stones and in their excellent baskets. Basket-makers gathered swamp cane, split it into strands then dyed it either black or yellow or red, and let it dry. When the strands were completely dry they wove them into baskets in two layers, in such a way as to produce symbolic designs on the exterior walls. Their first contact with Europeans in 1699. Between 1701 and 1705 war broke out after a party of French soldiers reinforced by Acolapissa and Natchitoches Indians took twenty Chitimacha women and children prisoner. In retaliation, Chitimacha warriors killed French missionary, St. Cosme, and his 3 companions in a battle near the Mississippi River. When news of the incident reached New Orleans the governor of the new French colony declared war.
When peace finally came thirteen years later many Chitimacha had been killed, displaced, or enslaved. This mighty Chitimacha nation was not only reduced in population; it had lost its power and political importance among the southern Louisiana tribes.
In 1762 another important milestone in Chitimacha history occurred. The Acadians from Nova Scotia began to arrive at New Orleans and move out along the bayous to escape persecution from British colonial authorities. These cajun French people married Chitimachas and within a century full bloods became scarce. The Chitimachas began to speak “cajun French” instead of their own language. Many converted to the Roman Catholic religion.
By 1880 the remaining Chitimacha people were struggling for survival. Since they were too poor to own any of the large sugar plantations they worked on them during summer and harvest time for wages, some of them cut timber, manufactured baskets or raised small quantities of vegetables and sugar cane the rest of the year to supplement their wages. They were an impoverished remnant of the old culture.
In 1905 the Chitimacha fought a court battle to retain the last 505 acres of their once vast territory. An out of court settlement was made and they were given title to 280.36 acres of the disputed tract. This too was almost lost when the attorney in the litigation presented them a bill plus interest almost a decade later. However, Miss Sarah Avery McIlhenney, a wealthy philanthropist intervened and purchased the judgement on the land for $1450. She agreed to assign ownership to the United States government on behalf of the Chitimacha, therefore preventing the loss of the last of their land.
In response to Miss McIlhenney’s efforts government officials took an interest in the Chitimacha affairs for the first time. On May 8, 1916, Congress placed the land in trust for the benefit of the tribe and established a roll of all known living members. Only 60 members were named. However, they did not receive any actual government assistance until a reservation school was established in 1934.
Until the 1940’s they still relied upon traditional occupations because there were few job opportunities near the reservations. Many Chitimacha shuttled back and forth between the reservation and area lakes where fishing was good, while others lived out on the lakes. It took all day to get to the outlying lakes from the reservations in their “push-skiff” or pirogue.
World War II marked a general turning point in tribal history as returning war veterans infused the tribe with new ideas, enthusiasm and a desire to insure tribal identity for the future. On November 28, 1946 Chief Earnest Darden resigned as chief and urged the tribe to appoint someone to engineer the formation of a constitutional form of government, thus ending the traditional chief-type of rule that had existed since prehistoric times.
Through the years there were many obstacles to obtaining the education necessary for the Chitimacha to secure well paying jobs. Until recently those desiring a high school education had to attend the Haskell High School in Kansas. Since few tribesmen could afford to send their children to Kansas for a high school degree a cycle of low education and low paying jobs continued.
After World War II several Chitimachas began working in the oil industry on “in-shore” drilling crews and more were working “off-shore” operations by the early 1950’s. Their success soon attracted others to more middle income jobs and today there are Chitimacha working as mechanics, plant workers, carpenters, mental health directors, community health representatives and administrators and other such professions.
On January 14, 1971 the Chitimachas became members of the first organized tribe in the state of Louisiana to be recognized by the United States government.
They were also one of the founding members of the Inter-Tribal Council in May, 1975 and have continued to play an important role in the agency.
Chawasha—
A small tribe allied to the Chitimacha living in the alluvial country about the mouth of the Mississippi River. It is possibly this tribe which survivors of DeSoto’s expedition found using atlatls in 1543.
Their village and that of the related Washa was on Bayou Lafourche in 1699 when the colony of Louisiana was founded.
In 1713 British slave traders formed a party of Natchez, Chickasaw and Yazoo to attack the Chawasha under the guise of a peace embassy. They killed the head chief and took 11 prisoners including the chief’s wife.
There seems to have been 2 or possibly 3 successive villages by 1722 all on the Mississippi River. In 1730 in order to quiet panic fears of the French in New Orleans, Governor Perrier allowed a band of slaves to destroy the Chawasha town. Although he described it as a total massacre it is more likely the adult men were absent from the village on a hunting trip and possibly only 7 or 8 of the Indians were murdered.
In 1758 Governor de Kerlerec states they had formed a little village 3-4 leagues from New Orleans. Afterward the population steadily declined, and they seemed to disappear toward the close of the 18th or beginning of the 19th century.
Taensa (Tensas)—
The Taensa occupied 7 or 8 villages near Lake St. Joseph, on the west bank of the Mississippi River in Northeastern Louisiana.
In March, 1700 the temple near Newellton on the west end of the lake was destroyed by lightning and was never rebuilt, fearing raiding parties from the Yazoo and Chickasaw the tribe abandoned their villages in 1706 and moved down the Mississippi River to the Bayogoula village. The Bayogoula treated them well but soon after their arrival the Taensa turned on the Bayogoula killing many and driving the rest away. The Taensa had intended to return to their ancient villages after this massacre, but apparently they remained in the neighborhood of the old Bayogoula town, for they were at the Manchac in 1715. They also had a village during this period on the south side of the Mississippi, (about 30 miles) above New Orleans.
Before 1744 they had moved to the Tensaw River, to which they gave their name and where they remained until the country was ceded to England in 1763. They then removed to the Red River and were later granted permission to settle on the Mississippi at the entrance of Bayou Lafourche.
They were living beside the Apalachee, the settlements of the two tribes extending from Bayou d’Appo to Bayou Jean de Jean and their own village standing at the head of the turn. Subsequently both tribes sold their land and moved to Bayou Boeuf.
Later the Taensa parted with this land also and drifted farther south to a small bayou at the head of Grand Lake, still known on local maps as Taensa Bayou.
They intermarried with the Chitimacha and the Alabama becoming gradually lost as a distinct people.
Washa—
Small tribe living on Bayou Lafourche west of present city of New Orleans in 1699. By 1805 only 5 individuals living with French settlers in 1805.