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   Bayougoula

   Bayougoula were located west side of the Mississippi at Bayougoula in Iberville Parish, Louisiana.

   Taking into account the horrific drop in the native populations of the region after 1540, an estimate of 3,000 Bayougoula in 1650 appears reasonable. In 1699 Iberville said that the Bayougoula and Mugulasha together had about 250 warriors (1,250 total). However, both tribes had just been hit by epidemics which had killed almost half of them. War and another epidemic occurred that winter, followed by the Bayougoula's massacre of the Mugulasha in May. The Bayougoula numbered only 500 when the Taensa moved in with them in 1706. However, this time it was the Bayougoula who were murdered. Only half managed to escape and resettle downstream with the Acolapissa. The last separate enumeration taken by the French in 1715, just before the disappearance of the Bayougoula into the Houma, listed them with 40 warriors (200 people).

   Bayougoula is a Choctaw word meaning "bayou people" alluding to their location near the Mississippi River. Their name for themselves was "Ischenoca" which translates approximately as "our people."

   Their housing was circular in shape and used the wattle-and-daub construction (thatched roof) typical of the area. At the time of their first meeting in 1699, the French noted that the Bayougoula were still building large earthen platform mounds on top of which they placed their important public buildings - the chief's house a large (30' diameter) temple for religious ceremonies. The temple also contained sacred objects and an eternal fire kept burning by the village priest.

   The swampy nature of the area made burial undesirable, so the Bayougoula placed their dead on high platforms to protect them from animals during decomposition. Once this was complete, the bones were placed in a tribal ossuary (bone house).

   Hunting, using fire to drive the animals into the open, was important with buffalo, turkey, deer, and alligator, and fish being the major prey. However, the bulk of the Bayougoula diet was provided by their agriculture: corn, bean, squash, melons, sunflowers, and tobacco. Dogs were the only animal domesticated by Native Americans before the horse, but the Bayougoula in 1699 kept small flocks of turkeys.

   The tribes of the lower Mississippi were also unique in that tribal territories were well defined. Decorated with fish heads and bear bones, a large red post near the mouth of the Red River marked the boundary between the Bayougoula and the Houma just to the north. Translated into French, the location of this "Red Post" became known as Baton Rouge, the present-day capital of Louisiana.

   Smallpox killed than half of the Acolapissa, Bayougoula, and Houma in 1721. Alcohol also took its toll, and the pressure from expanding French settlements near New Orleans soon forced the three allied tribes upstream to Ascension Parish shortly afterwards. Although French still maintained separate villages and chiefs in 1739, it was more pretense than reality. By this time, the French no longer bothered with separate counts for each tribe and began referring to the 500 that remained as the Houma.

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