SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 363

have lived on by themselves in the same region until gradually
reduced and exterminated by the advance of the white settlements.
 From mission records recently examined by Professor Bolton, of
the University of Texas, it appears probable that the Bidai, hitherto
supposed to be of Caddoan stock, were affiliated with the Atakapa,
and that the Deadoses and other tribes, of which little more than the
names survive, were also connected with them.
 All that we know of the ethnology of the Atakapa is contained in
Duralde's letter cited already in connection with the Chitimacha.
The Atakapa section is as follows:
 The Atacapas pretend that they are come out of the sea, that a prophet or
man inspired by God laid down the rules of conduct to their first ancestors
padres) which consisted in not doing any evil. They believe in an author of
all things: that those who do well go above, and that those who do evil descend
under the earth into the shades. They speak of a deluge which swallowed up
men, animals, and the land, and it was only those who resided along a high
land or mountain (that of San Antonio, if we may judge) who escaped this
calamity.
 According to their law a man ceases to bear his own name as soon as he has
a child born, and he is then called 'the father of such a boy,' giving the name
of the child. If the child dies the father again assumes his own name. The
women alone are charged with the labors of the field and of the household.
 The mounds according to them were intended to elevate and distinguish the
dwellings of the chiefs, and were thrown up under their supervision by the
women. *
 Many years before the discovery of the elephant in the bayou called Carancro
an Atakapas savage had informed a man who is at present in my service in
the capacity of cow-herd that the ancestors of his nation transmitted [the
story] to their descendants that a beast of enormous size had perished either
in this bayou or in one of the two water courses a short distance from it with-
out their being able to indicate the true place, the antiquity of the event having
without doubt made them forget it. The fact has realized this tradition."
 This was written at Atakapas (now Franklin), April 23, 1802, and
therefore applies particularly to the eastern Atakapa, or Hiye'kiti, as
the Lake Charles people called them. Whether the beliefs of the
western Atakapa were the same we shall probably never know, but as
some of the Chitimacha stories collected by the writer were known to
them, it is probable that there was comparatively little difference.
Dialectically, however, there was some divergence, judging by a
comparison of Duralde's vocabulary with that obtained by Gatschet.

 THE OPELOUSA
 This name is probably from aba, 'above,' and lusa, 'black,' and
it is usually translated 'black hair,' or 'black head.' The tribe
appears to be referred to first in an unpublished letter of Bienville,
dated May 15, 1733, where it occurs in the form "Loupelousas."6
 aMs., in Bureau of American Ethnology.
 SFrench, Hist. Coll. La., 70, 1850.