This family was based upon the language spoken by a single tribe who,
according to Dr. Sibley, lived about the year 1800 near the old Spanish
fort or mission of Adaize, "about 40 miles from Natchitoches, below the
Yattassees, on a lake called Lac Macdon, which communicates with the
division of Red River that passes by Bayau Pierre."[6] A vocabulary of
about two hundred and fifty words is all that remains to us of their
language, which according to the collector, Dr. Sibley, "differs from
all others, and is so difficult to speak or understand that no nation
can speak ten words of it."
[Footnote 6: Travels of Lewis and Clarke, London, 1809, p. 189.]
It was from an examination of Sibley's vocabulary that Gallatin reached
the conclusion of the distinctness of this language from any other
known, an opinion accepted by most later authorities. A recent
comparison of this vocabulary by Mr. Gatschet, with several Caddoan
dialects, has led to the discovery that a considerable percentage of the
Ad['a]i words have a more or less remote affinity with Caddoan, and he
regards it as a Caddoan dialect. The amount of material, however,
necessary to establish its relationship to Caddoan is not at present
forthcoming, and it may be doubted if it ever will be, as recent inquiry
has failed to reveal the existence of a single member of the tribe, or
of any individual of the tribes once surrounding the Ad['a]i who
remembers a word of the language.
Mr. Gatschet found that some of the older Caddo in the Indian Territory
remembered the Ad['a]i as one of the tribes formerly belonging to the
Caddo Confederacy. More than this he was unable to learn from them.
Owing to their small numbers, their remoteness from lines of travel, and
their unwarlike character the Ad['a]i have cut but a small figure in
history, and accordingly the known facts regarding them are very meager.
The first historical mention of them appears to be by Cabeca de Vaca,
who in his "Naufragios," referring to his stay in Texas, about 1530,
calls them Atayos. Mention is also made of them by several of the early
French explorers of the Mississippi, as d'Iberville and Joutel.
The Mission of Adayes, so called from its proximity to the home of the
tribe, was established in 1715. In 1792 there was a partial emigration
of the Ad['a]i to the number of fourteen families to a site south of San
Antonio de Bejar, southwest Texas, where apparently they amalgamated
with the surrounding Indian population and were lost sight of. (From
documents preserved at the City Hall, San Antonio, and examined by Mr.
Gatschet in December, 1886.) The Ad['a]i who were left in their old homes
numbered one hundred in 1802, according to Baudry de Lozieres. According
to Sibley, in 1809 there were only "twenty men of them remaining, but
more women." In 1820 Morse mentions only thirty survivors.