The Mougoulacha were a Native American tribe that lived near

Lake Pontchartrain Lake Pontchartrain ( ) is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of with an average depth of . Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about from west ...

Population

In 1699 Iberville said that the

Bayagoula The Bayagoula were a Native American tribe from what is now called Mississippi and Louisiana in the southern United States. Due to transcription errors amongst cartographers who mistakenly rewrote the tribe's name as their name is erroneously assu ...

and Mougoulacha together had about 180-250 warriors and an estimated 1,250 people.

Language

The Mougoulacha language was closely related to

Choctaw The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are ...

and

Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classified as ...

, which are both

Muskogean languages Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a Native American language family spoken in different areas of the Southeastern United States. Though the debate concerning their interrelationships is ongoing, the Muskogean languages are generally div ...

Early History

In the year 1699

Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville (16 July 1661 – 9 July 1706) or Sieur d'Iberville was a French soldier, explorer, colonial administrator, and trader. He is noted for founding the colony of Louisiana in New France. He was born in Montreal to French ...

journeyed to the east of the

Mississippi River Delta The Mississippi River Delta is the confluence of the Mississippi River with the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, southeastern United States. The river delta is a area of land that stretches from Vermilion Bay on the west, to the Chandeleur Isla ...

and encountered the Mougoulacha tribe. d'Iberville was amazed that the Mougoulacha chief was wearing a blue serge coat. The chief said that the coat was given to him many years ago when

Henri de Tonti Henri de Tonti (''né'' Enrico Tonti; – September 1704), also spelled Henri de Tonty, was an Italian-born French military officer, explorer, and ''voyageur'' who assisted René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, with North American explora ...

explored the area. The Mougoulacha chief then showed d'Iberville a letter that was written in french. d'Ibberville determined that the letter was left by Tonti with the

Quinipissa The Quinipissa (sometimes spelled Kinipissa in French sources) were an indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous group living on the lower Mississippi River, in present-day Louisiana, as reported by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in ...

tribe fourteen years earlier. This led d'Iberville to believe that the Mougoulacha were actually the remaining members of the Quinipissa tribe.

Culture

The name Mougoulacha ''(Imongolosha)'' is believed to mean "People from the other side". The tribe maintained perpetual fires burning in two village temples. The temples were the same size as their homes but decorated with animal carvings. The explorer d'Iberville said that he saw many carvings of possums which they called ''choucouacha'' in their native language along with offerings of deer, bear, and bison skins inside the temple. A Jesuit priest named Paul du Ru said that the Mougoulacha had two temples in each village located on opposite sides of a large plaza. Some sources indicate that the Mougoulacha may have been the same tribe as the

Acolapissa The Acolapissa were a small tribe of Native Americans of North America, who lived in the Southeast of what is the present-day United States. They lived along the banks of the Pearl River, between present-day Louisiana and Mississippi. They are beli ...

and the

Tangipahoa The Tangipahoa were a Native American tribe that lived just north of Lake Pontchartrain and between the Pearl River and the Mississippi River. Etymology The name Tangipahoa is derived from the Muskogean words ''(tonche pahoha)'' which translates ...

. According to several sources related to the Houma, many tribes in the area of Lake Pontchartrain were called Mougoulacha.

References

{{authority control Native American tribes in Louisiana Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands