Taensa

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Taensa Indians (Taenso, Tahensa, Takensa, Tenisaw, Tenza, Tinza) were a people who spoke one of the Muskogean languages and came from northeastern Louisiana, specifically Tensas Parish, Louisiana, as reported by Nicolas de la Salle in 1682. During the 18th century, they moved several times and ultimately merged with the Chitimacha. They numbered perhaps 1200 people in several villages. The meaning of the name is unknown.

The Taensa were visited by French missionaries around the year 1700, who settled among the Taensa, Tunica, and Natchez. At the time they lived along the Mississippi River south of the Tunica, near the Yazoo River. The missionaries noted the complex religion of the Taensa. The tribe had retained chiefdom characteristics after they had disappeared elsewhere.

The Taensa were an agricultural and canoeing people who lived in large houses described as having walls of earth. However it is more probable that they were made of logs plastered with clay, and roofed with mats of woven cane splits. Their chiefs had absolute power and were treated with great respect. This varied greatly from the custom among the northern tribes. Reportedly during a ceremonial visit to La Salle the chief was accompanied by attendants who, with their hands, swept the road in front of him as he advanced.

Their society had similarity to the Natchez people in its practice of sacrificial rites and hierarchical social classes. Their chief deities seem to have been the sun and the serpent. Their dome-shaped temple was surmounted by the figures of three eagles facing the rising sun, the outer walls and the roof being of cane mats painted entirely red, and the whole was surrounded with a palisade of stakes, on each of which was set a human skull, the remains of a former sacrifice. Inside was an altar, with a rope of human scalp locks, and a perpetual fire guarded day and night by two old priests. When a chief died his wives and personal attendants were killed that their spirits might accompany him to the other world. At one chief's funeral thirteen victims were thus slaughtered. When a Catholic priest stopped one of these ceremonies the temple was struck by lightning thus validating their beliefs and encouraging women to volunteer to be sacrificed.

In 1700, a great sickness killed many Taensa, the French missionary Montigny recorded. The Taensa, along with other Indians of the lower Mississippi River, were subjected to slave raids by the Chickasaw, for sale in the British slave trade via South Carolina. The Natchez and Yazoo Indians often allied with the Chickasaw in attacking tribes like the Taensa and Tunica. During the Natchez War of 1729, the Taensa and Tunica were forced to migrate south into present-day Louisiana.

Their initial relations with the French were friendly, but the rivalry of European powers strained Indians throughout the region. The Taensa later moved to southwest Louisiana due to fighting with the Chickasaw and Yazoo. Early in the nineteenth century they petitioned the Spanish to allow them to enter Texas, but this petition never materialized into actions. They disappeared from history soon after that.

In the 1880s some French seminary students claimed to have discovered the Taensa language, its grammar as well as papers and songs in it. This produced an excitement and extensive debate among linguists. However, a few years later a series of publications by D. G. Brinton exposed the language as a hoax. The hoax itself also inspired debate in philology circles. In reality, the language of the Taensa was almost identical with Natchez.

A different, but closely related group, called Little Taensa or Avoyel, who lived in present day Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, were mentioned by Iberville in 1699.

[edit] References

Gallay, Alan. "The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South 1670-1717". Yale University Press: New York (2002).
Johnson, M. and Hook, R. The Native Tribes of North America, Compendium Publishing, 1992. ISBN 1-872004-03-2