The Tangipahoa were a Native American tribe that lived just north of

Lake Pontchartrain Lake Pontchartrain ( ) is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of with an average depth of . Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about from wes ...

and between the

Pearl River The Pearl River, also known by its Chinese name Zhujiang or Zhu Jiang in Mandarin pinyin or Chu Kiang and formerly often known as the , is an extensive river system in southern China. The name "Pearl River" is also often used as a catch-a ...

and the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

Etymology

The name Tangipahoa is derived from the

Muskogean Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a Native American language family spoken in different areas of the Southeastern United States. Though the debate concerning their interrelationships is ongoing, the Muskogean languages are generally div ...

words ''(tonche pahoha)'' which translates to "corncob people" or "people of the corn" or "corncob". It is from this Native American tribe that the modern

Tangipahoa Parish Tangipahoa Parish (; French: ''Paroisse de Tangipahoa'') is a parish located in the southeast corner of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 121,097. The parish seat is Amite City, while the largest city is ...

gets its name, as well as the

Tangipahoa River The Tangipahoa River ( ) originates northwest of McComb in southwest Mississippi, and runs south U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed June 20, 2011 through Lake Tangipahoa in ...

and the village of

Tangipahoa The Tangipahoa were a Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe that lived just north of Lake Pontchartrain and between the Pearl River (Mississippi–Louisiana), Pearl River and the Mississippi River. Etymology The name Tangip ...

Population

Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville (16 July 1661 – 9 July 1706) or Sieur d'Iberville was a French soldier, explorer, colonial administrator, and trader. He is noted for founding the colony of Louisiana in New France. He was born in Montreal to French ...

wrote that in the year 1650 the population of both the

Acolapissa The Acolapissa were a small tribe of Native Americans of North America, who lived in the Southeast of what is the present-day United States. They lived along the banks of the Pearl River, between present-day Louisiana and Mississippi. They are beli ...

and Tangipahoa combined consisted of 250 families and around 150 men. However the research by

James Mooney James Mooney (February 10, 1861 – December 22, 1921) was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee. Known as "The Indian Man", he conducted major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as of tribes on the G ...

determined that a more accurate count was proposed by

Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe (4 February 1683 in Saint-Malo – 26 September 1765) was a French explorer who is credited with the discovery of Little Rock, Arkansas. He was the first known French explorer to set foot in the future state of O ...

when he found that the tribe population was around 1500 people.

Language

The Tangipahoa language was closely related to Choctaw and

Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...

, which are both

Muskogean languages Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a Native American language family spoken in different areas of the Southeastern United States. Though the debate concerning their interrelationships is ongoing, the Muskogean languages are generally div ...

History

On March 31, 1682

Henri de Tonti Henri de Tonti (''né'' Enrico Tonti; – September 1704), also spelled Henri de Tonty, was an Italian-born French military officer, explorer, and ''voyageur'' who assisted René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, with North American explora ...

on a journey with René-Robert Cavelier and

Sieur de La Salle Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seignor ...

wrote that they camped at Maheoula, a Tangipahoa settlement.

claimed that the Tangipahoa settlement was an

settlement and that they were of the same tribe. The Tangipahoa settlement was destroyed sometime in the 17th century. When La Salle reached the village he said he saw that it was burned and that there were bodies laying in the village. La Salle wrote that when he asked the

Bayogoula The Bayagoula were a Native American tribe from what is now called Mississippi and Louisiana in the southern United States. Due to transcription errors amongst cartographers who mistakenly rewrote the tribe's name as their name is erroneously assu ...

tribe what had happened they claimed that the Tangipahoa village was destroyed by the

Houma people The Houma () are a historic Native American people of Louisiana on the east side of the Red River of the South. Their descendants, the Houma people or organization "The United Houma Nation", have been recognized by the state as a tribe since 1 ...

. The remaining Tangipahoa tribe members are believed to have reunited with the

and eventually merged with the

and then the Houma.

Etymology

Population

Language

History

References

Further reading