CHITIMACHA

(“People of the many waters”)

 

·       Chitimacha people and their ancestors inhabited the Mississippi River Delta area of south-central Louisiana for thousands of years, before European contact.

 

·       Chitimacha people believe their name comes from the term “Pantch Pinankanc” meaning “Men altogether red” and it also means “Warrior”.

 

·       The boundary of the Chitimacha territory was marked by four prominent trees.

 

·       The Chitimacha can date their origins to about AD 500, when their started to settle along the Bayou Teche area.

When Columbus arrived in American it is estimated the combined strength of the four Chitimacha groups was about 20,000 people scattered among 15 villages in southern Louisiana.

 

·       Chitimacha People were divided into four sub-tribes (clans)

 

o   Chawasha

o   Chitimacha

o   Washa

o   Yagenachito

 

·       Choctaw People called these terms “sub-tribes” based on the character of their geographic territory.

o   Chawasha is a Choctaw term for “Racoon Place”                  

o   Washa is also a Choctaw term for “Hunting People”

o   Yagenachito means “Big County”

 

·       The tribe was rule by a male chief who over saw all the villages.  The chief would inherit his position.

 

·       Women of the tribe served as healers and held positions of power, but they could not hold a religious authority.

 

·       The Chitimacha People established their home in the swamps, bayous and rivers of the Atchafalaya Basin, one of the richest inland estuaries, on the continent.            

 

·       These site conditions provided a natural defense to an enemy attack and made these villages, almost impregnable.  This is way they did not fortify them.

 

·       Dwellings were constructed from available resources.  They built walls from framework of poles and plastered them, with mud or palmetto leaves.  The roof was thatched. 

 

·       They were skilled horticulturalists, raising corn, beans and squash (also known as “The three sisters”).  Corn was the main crop supplemented by beans, squash and melons.  Men of the tribe hunted deer, turkey and alligators.  They also caught fish.

 

·       Chitimacha people stored grain crops in an elevated winter granary to supplement hunting and fishing.

 

·       Chitimacha people made dugout canoes for transportation from cypress trees.  These vessels were carved out of cypress trees.  The largest canoe could hold as many as forty people.

 

·       To gain the stone they needed for arrowheads and tools they traded crops for stone with tribes of the north.  They developed weapons such as, the blow gun and cane dart.  They would use fish bones for arrowheads.

 

·       Even though the Chitimacha didn’t interact with the Europeans, their allies did, and their number was greatly reduced by epidemic sickness.  Just like other indigenous people the Chitimacha had no immunity to these types of new disease.

 

·       Chitimacha fought a twelve-year war (1706-1718) with the French and their Native American allies.  The French had superior fire power that nearly destroyed the eastern Chitimacha tribes.  Those that survived were relocated by the French away from the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico to the area where they live today.

 

·       The tribe’s land once encompassed the entire Atchafalaya Basin, land westward toward Lafayette, Louisiana southward, to the Gulf of Mexico and eastward, to the New Orleans area.

 

·       In 1826, the Chitimacha people claimed eighty arpents front and forty deep on either side of the Bayou Teche with approximately, 5440 acres.

 

·       In 1846, the Chitimacha sued the Federal Government to claim their traditional tribal land.

 

·       Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana is the only tribe that still occupies a portion of their aboriginal homeland.

 

·       Sarah Avery McIlhenny bought the last remaining property of the tribe.  She placed it in trust to the tribe and helped them to be federally recognized by the government.

 

·       Chitimacha was federally recognized by the United States government 1916.