_Atakapa_—
This large group of Indians occupied the prairies of southwestern
Louisiana from Bayou Teche to the Sabine River and from Opelousas to the
coastal marshes. They were a semi-settled, partially agricultural people
occupying a number of favorable villages along waterways; the lower
coast of the Calcasieu and around the shores of Calcasieu Lake, lower
Mermentau, Grand Lake, along Bayou Plaquemine, along the Vermillion near
the present site of Abbeville and a site near the present town of
Opelousas.
They were culturally less advanced than their neighbors, however they
were more advanced than their reputation as wandering cannibals would
lead us to imagine. They had several semi-permanent villages and are
known to have participated in trade with other Indians along the Texas
coast. They traded fish to the Opelousas for flints and other items they
did not manufacture.
Although individuals frequented various French posts with other Indian
tribes, it was well into the 18th century that the Atakapa began to feel
the influences of the Europeans on their culture. This was probably due
in part to the relative isolation of their villages.
In 1760 Skunnemoke (“Short Arrow”) sold the land on which his village
stood along with a wide strip between Bayou Teche and Vermillion
village, the group did not abandon their site until the early 19th
century. Other lands of the Atakapa were steadily sold and the villages
moved and combined to survive the advance of the Europeans.
In 1787 the principle Atakapa village was at the “Island of Woods” later
known as the “Island Lacasine”. It was abandoned about 1799 when they
moved to a village on the Mermentau. This was the last village of the
Eastern Atakapa and is said to have been occupied as late as 1836. Some
of the Indians united with the Western Atakapa around Lake Charles, but
others scattered as far as Oklahoma. The last village of the Western
Atakapa was on “Indian Lake”, later called “Lake Prein”, which was
occupied until after the middle of the 19th century.
In 1885 a considerable vocabulary of Atakapa was gathered from two women
living in Lake Charles who had belonged to this last Atakapa town. A
later survey disclosed a few former residents of the old town were still
living in 1907-1908 but, by 1942 all known villagers of the last Atakapa
town were dead.
_Opelousa_—
Probably a divergent group of Atakapa. They lived in the vicinity of the
present city of Opelousas and acted as middlemen in trade between other
Indians in the South. They bought fish from the Chitimacha and Atakapa
which they exchanged for flints from the Avoyels. Some of these flints
were passed on to the Karankawas from the Texas coast for globular or
conical oil jugs. They traded such items as Caddo pottery, Texas pots,
stone beads, arrow points and salt along routes from the interior of
Texas to the coast and inland through Caddo country in northern
Louisiana and onward through Arkansas. (737)
The last representatives of this tribe apparently joined the Atakapa to
whom they were probably related.