Commander Lemoyne d'Iberville graphically describes (Margry IV, 170-172) the village of the Bayogoula with its two temples and 107 cabins. The number of the males was rather large (200 to 250) compared to the paucity of women inhabiting it. A fire was burning in the centre of the temples, and near the door were figures of animals, the "choucoüacha" or opossum being one of them. This word shukuasha is the diminutive of Cha'hta: shukata opossum, and contains the diminutive terminal -ushi. Shishikushi or "tambours faits de calebasses," gourd-drums, is another Indian term occurring in his description,[79] probably borrowed from an Algonkin language of the north. A curious instance of sign language displayed by one of the Bayogoula chiefs will be found in Margry IV, 154. 155.
The full form of the tribal name is Bayuk-ókla or river-tribe, creek- or bayou-people; the Cha'hta word for a smaller river, or river forming part of a delta is báyuk, contr. bōk, and occurs in Boguechito, Bok'húmma, etc.
The Húma, Ouma, Houma or Omma tribe lived, in the earlier periods of French colonization, seven leagues above the junction of Red river, on the eastern bank of Mississippi river. L. d'Iberville describes their settlement, 1699, as placed on a hill-ridge, 2½ leagues inland, and containing 140 cabins, with about 350 heads of families. Their village is described in Margry IV, 177. 179. 265-271. 452, located by degrees of latitude: 32° 15´, of longitude: 281° 25´. The limit between the lands occupied by the Huma and the Bayogoula was marked by a high pole painted red, in Cha'hta Istr-ouma (?), which stood on the high shores of Mississippi river at Baton Rouge, La.[80] Their hostilities with the Tangipahoa are referred to by the French annalists, and ended in the destroying of the Tangipahoa town by the Huma; Margry IV, 168. 169. Cf. Taensa. A tribe mentioned in 1682 in connection with the Huma is that of the Chigilousa; Margry I, 563.
Their language is distinctly stated to have differed from that of the Taensa, IV, 412. 448, and the tribal name, a Cha'hta term for red, probably refers to red leggings, as Opelúsa is said to refer to black leggings or moccasins.
They once claimed the ground on which New Orleans stands, and after the Revolution lived on Bayou Lafourche.[81] A coast parish, with Houma as parish seat, is now called after them.
The country south of the Upper Creek settlements, lying between Lower Alabama and Lower Chatahuchi river, must have been sparsely settled in colonial times, for there is but one Indian tribe, the Pensacola (páⁿsha-ókla or "hair-people") mentioned there. This name is of Cha'hta origin, and there is a tradition that the old homes, or a part of them, of the Cha'hta nation lay in these tracts. On Escambia river there are Cha'hta at the present time, who keep up the custom of family vendetta or blood revenge, and that river is also mentioned as a constant battle-field between the Creeks and Cha'hta tribes by W. Bartram.[82] When the Cha'hta concluded treaties with the United States Government involving cessions of land, they claimed ownership of the lands in question, even of some lands lying on the east side of Chatahuchi river, where they had probably been hunting from an early period. A list of the way-stations and fords on the post-road between Lower Tallapoosa river and the Bay of Mobile is appended to Hawkins' Sketch, p. 85, and was probably written after 1813; cf. p. 83. This post-road was quite probably an old Indian war-trail traveled over by Creek warriors to meet the Cha'hta.
The Conshac tribe, the topographic and ethnographic position of which is difficult to trace, has been located in these thinly-inhabited portions of the Gulf coast. La Harpe, whose annals are printed in B. F. French, Histor. Coll. of Louisiana, Vol. III, states (p. 44) that "two villages of Conshaques, who had always been faithful to the French and resided near Mobile Fort, had been driven out of their country because they would not receive the English among them (about 1720)." The Conshacs and Alibamu were at war with the Tohome before 1702; cf. Margry IV, 512. 518. L. d'Iberville, in 1702, gives their number at 2000 families, probably including the Alibamu, stating that both tribes have their first settlements 35 to 40 leagues to the northeast, on an eastern affluent of Mobile river, joining it five leagues above the fort. From these first villages to the E. N. E. there are other Conshac villages, known to the Spaniards as Apalachicolys, with many English settled among them, and 60 to 65 leagues distant from Mobile.[83] Du Pratz, who speaks of them from hearsay only, places them north of the Alibamu, and states that they spoke a language almost the same as the Chicasa (Hist. p. 208). "A small party of Coussac Indians is settled on Chacta-hatcha or Pea river, running into St. Rose's bay, 25 leagues above its mouth."[84] On the headwaters of Ikanfina river, H. Tanner's map (1827) has a locality called: Pokanaweethly Cootsa O. F.
The origin of these different acceptations can only be accounted for by the generic meaning of the appellation Conshac. It is the Cha'hta word kánshak: (1) a species of cane, of extremely hard texture, and (2) knife made from it. These knives were used throughout the Gulf territories, and thus d'Iberville and du Pratz call by this name the Creek Indians or Maskoki proper, while to others the Conchaques are the Cusha, Kúsha, a Cha'hta tribe near Mobile bay, which is called by Rev. Byington in his manuscript dictionary Konshas, Konshaws. That the Creeks once manufactured knives of this kind is stated in our Kasí'hta migration legend.
THE CHA'HTA LANGUAGE,
the representative of the western group of Maskoki dialects, differs in its phonetics from the eastern dialects chiefly by the more general vocalic nasalization previously alluded to. Words cannot begin with two consonants; the Creek st is replaced by sht, and combinations like tl, bt, nt do not occur (Byington's Grammar, p. 9). In short words the accent is laid upon the penultima.