BUREATT OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY


 The Memoir of the Sieur de Tonti runs thus:
 I made the chief men among them cross over to M. de la Salle, who accom-
panied them to their village, 3 leagues inland, and passed the night there with
some of his men. The next day he returned with the chief of the village where
he had slept, who was a brother of the great chief of the Natches; he con-
ducted us to his brother's village, situated on the hillside, near the river, at
6 leagues distance. We were well received there. This nation counts more than
300 warriors. Here the men cultivate the ground, hunt, and fish, as well us
the Tainca, and their manners are the same."
 The truth of the matter is evidently contained in the first two
narratives, the last being evidently garbled, and the town 6 leagues
distant said to belong to the great chief of the Natchez was the
" Coroa or Coroha village of the other relations.
 Lower down the Mississippi La Salle's party had a hostile en-
counter with the Quinipissa tribe, and on their return they found
that the Koroa had been informed of this and had taken the part of
their enemies. The Natchez had evidently sided against him as well,
since no one was to be seen at the Natchez landing when they
encamped opposite on the night of April 29, and a little farther
up hostile war cries greeted them from the other bank.
 Four years later, i. e., in 1686, Tonti descended the Mississippi
again to meet La Salle, who had sailed from France for its mouth,
and he writes:
 Having left [the Taensa] the 1st of April, after having navigated for 16
leagues, we arrived at the village of the Nach6s, where the chief awaited me
on the bank with the calumet. It is a nation which can furnish fifteen hundred
fighting men. I did not sleep there. I contented myself with complaining that
they had wished to kill us treacherously four years before, to which they
answered nothing.c
 Although the people he met are here called the Natchez, and
although there is no doubt that the number of fighting men given
agrees very well with what we know of the strength of the nation at
that time, the writer is of the opinion that the town he actually visited
was that of the Koroa. His reasons for believing this are that this
village, like that of the Koroa, and unlike those of the Natchez, is rep-
resented as situated on the bank of the Mississippi, and because
otherwise Tonti's complaint regarding the treacherous attempt
against his people is without point, La Salle and his companions
not having stopped at the Natchez towns on their return four years
earlier and they having heard nothing of that tribe except some'
hostile cries in the woods. It would seem that Tonti's notes or his
memory became somewhat confused regarding the relation of these
two peoples to each other, a confusion rendered still greater, no doubt,
 a French, Hist. Coll. La., 62-63, 1846. c Margry, D1)couvertes, III, 556.
 SSee authorities just cited.


[BULL. 43