Page:A Dictionary of the Biloxi and Ofo Languages.djvu/16

 death, which occurred February 4, 1895, was one of the severest blows that the study of American Indian languages has had to endure.

All that is known about the ethnology of the Biloxi tribe, besides what is given in the preceding pages and what may be inferred from that of other tribes in the same general region, is contained in Mr. Dorsey’s vice-presidential address above referred to and in the texts which follow.

The Siouan tribes most closely related to the Biloxi linguistically appear to have been the recently discovered Ofo of the lower Yazoo, the now extinct Tutelo of Virginia, and probably the other Siouan tribes of the East as well. Among the western Sioux they found their nearest relatives, curiously enough, among the northern representatives of the stock, the Dakota, Hidatsa, Mandan, Crows, and Winnebago. A closer study will probably establish their position in the group with much more exactness.

The Ofo tribe usually appears in history under the name Offagoula, or Ofogoula, which is evidently composed of their proper designation and the Mobilian ending meaning “people.” Du Pratz naturally but erroneously assumes that the first part is derived from Mobilian or Choctaw ofe, “dog.” By the Tunica, and apparently by the Yazoo and Koroa as well, they were known as Ushpie (Ûcpī), and this word has been employed by some French travelers not thoroughly familiar with the Yazoo tribes as if it referred to an independent people.

The first reference to the Ofo, so far as the writer is aware, is in Iberville’s journal of his first expedition to the mouth of the Mississippi in 1699. He did not ascend the river as far as the Yazoo, it is true, but he was informed by a Taëensa Indian that upon it were “seven villages, which are the Tonicas, Ouispe, Opocoulas, Taposa, Chaquesauma, Outapa, Thysia.”ᵃ Here the two names of the Ofo are given as if there were two distinct tribes. Margry, the transcriber of this document, has evidently misread Opocoulas for Ofocoulas. Pénicaut, in chronicling Le Sueur’s ascent of the Mississippi the year after, says: “Ascending the river [Yazoo] four leagues one finds on the right the villages where six nations of savages live called the Yasoux, the Offogoulas, the Tonicas, the Coroas, the Ouitoupas, and the Oussipée.”ᵇ The Jesuit missionary Gravier visited this river later in the same year in order to see Father Davion, who had established himself as missionary among the Tunica and was reported to be dangerously ill. He says: “There are three different lauguages in his mission, the Jakou [Yazoo] of 30 cabins, the Ounspik of 10 or 12 cabins, and the Toumika [Tunica], who are in seven hamlets, and

ᵃ Margry, Découvertes, IV, p. 180. ᵇ Ibid., V, p. 401.