The Eyeish were a Native American tribe from present-day eastern Texas.

History

The Eyeish were part of the

Caddo Confederacy The Caddo people comprise the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Binger, Oklahoma. They speak the Caddo language. The Caddo Confederacy was a network of Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, who ...

,Sturtevant, 616 although their relationship to other Caddo tribes was ambiguous, and they were often hostile to the

Hasinai The Hasinai Confederacy (Caddo: ) was a large confederation of Caddo-speaking Native Americans who occupied territory between the Sabine and Trinity rivers in eastern Texas. Today, their descendants are enrolled in the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma an ...

. They historically lived on the Eyeish Creek, located between the Neches and Sabine Rivers.Eyeish Indian History.
''Access Genealogy''. (retrieved 6 Sept 2009) Spanish explorers encountered the tribe in 1542 and reported large herds of buffalo in the area. The tribe was not on the best terms with tribes located west of the Trinity River or those to the north near the Red River. Franciscan monks who traveled on Domingo Ramón's 1716–17 expedition through Texas founded Mission Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de los Ais; however, the Eyeish were not generally accepting of Spanish missionary efforts. After 50 years, the mission only recorded eleven baptisms, seven burials, and three marriages. In the 18th century, the tribe contracted European diseases such as smallpox and measles from the French and Spanish explorers in the region. The populations decreased but rebounded, from a low of 20 tribal members recorded by John Sibley in 1805, to 160 families recorded in 1828. By then, they lived between the Brazos and

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

s. Ultimately, they joined the Wichita and

Caddo The Caddo people comprise the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Binger, Oklahoma. They speak the Caddo language. The Caddo Confederacy was a network of Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, who ...

tribes in

Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

Synonymy

The tribe is also known as the ''A'-ish, Aiaichi, Aliche, Aliches, Aiche, Ayays, Hais,'' ''Ays,'' ''Ahijitos,'' ''Aaya'', ''Aays'', or ''Aas''. The group known as ''Hauydix'' may also have been the Eyeish. They are not, however, considered to be the same tribe as the ''Aijados'' encountered by the Mendoza Expedition of 1683–84, nor are they the same as the '' Ais'' people from Florida.

Language

Although the Eyeish people were clearly connected to the Caddo people politically, it is not clear what language they spoke nor how that language relates genealogically to other known languages. Explorer John Sibley wrote that the Eyeish language was one of three unique languages spoken by the Eyeish, the Adai and the

Yatasi The Yatasi ( Caddo: Yáttasih) were Native American peoples from northwestern Louisiana that were part of the Natchitoches Confederacy of the Caddo Nation.HodgeHandbook of American Indians North of Mexico: N-Z p. 993 Today they are enrolled in t ...

and Natchitoches people and that Eyeish was spoken by no other group: ‘ tdiffers from all other, and is so difficult to speak or understand, that no nation can speak ten words of it.’ He collected a wordlist in 1807 for

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

, but this was lost when a thief stole Jefferson's linguistic papers as they were being moved from Washington DC to Monticello in Jefferson's second term. Sibley also reported that the Eyeish and Adai were bilingual in Caddo, which was used as a

contact language Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...

. However, according to informant Caddo Jake's report to John R. Swanton, Eyeish was mutually intelligible with the Adai language. There is not sufficient evidence to conclusively relate Adai to

Caddoan languages The Caddoan languages are a family of languages native to the Great Plains spoken by tribal groups of the central United States, from present-day North Dakota south to Oklahoma. All Caddoan languages are critically endangered, as the number of sp ...

, the only documentation being a list of 275 words compiled by Sibley. Allan Taylor and Alexander Lesser and Gene Weltfish have speculated that Adai belonged to the Caddoan language family and was possibly a dialect of Caddo.Sturtevant, 616–7

Notes

References

* Bolton, Herbet E
''The Hasinais: Southern Caddoans As Seen by the Earliest Europeans.''
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. . * Sturtevant, William C., general editor and Raymond D. Fogelson, volume editor. ''Handbook of North American Indians: Southeast''. Volume 14. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. .

External links

Caddo Nation

from Access Genealogy {{authority control Caddoan peoples Native American history of Texas Native American tribes in Texas Unclassified languages of North America