siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

56 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
the six towns which gave it its name, but more often it is extended
to include certain neighboring towns, particularly Chicasawhay
and Yowani, which seem to have shared in some measure the pe-
culiarities of the group. Another small body, centrally located,
embraced those towns in which, early in the eighteenth century, lived
the principal officials of the entire nation, the Kunshak or Cane
towns being particularly noteworthy among them. The importance
of this group is reflected in the name which Regis du Eoullet gives
to it, the Big People (Okla Chito). The remaining towns were
divided into two parties, one to the west known as the " Long
People" (Okla Falaya), and one to the east, the "People of the
Opposite Side (or Party)" (Okla tannap).
The French officer De Lusser (1730), who was the first to
mention any of the above divisions, seems to have heard of but two,
corresponding to the ones last mentioned, but two years later Du
Roullet adds the central group. The author of the Anonymous
Memoir is the first to separate the Sixtowns (Okla Hannali) from
the rest, though he commits a curious blunder by calling them the
towns " of the east." He also retains the central group, naming it,
through an equally curious mis-orientation, the division " of the
south." However, the native title he gives as " Taboka," which may
be from tabo'koa, " noon " ; and hence the position of the sun at
noon, i. e., the south. His " western " division seems to include
both the eastern and western parties of other writers. The native
name for this, as transmitted by him, is " Ougoula tanama."
" Ougoula " is, of course, okla, " people." Tanama I at first traced
to tanampi, " to fight," but I now think it probable that it is
identical with tannap, "the other (or opposite) side." This is, as
we have seen, Du Roullet's name for the eastern party but it is
possible that it was applied reciprocally to the division on the east
by those on the west and the division on the west by those on the
east. In later lists the central division disappears, its towns being
placed partly in the western group, partly in the eastern group, and
a few perhaps in the southern group. The western division also
appears as the " Big Party " and the eastern as the " Little Party."
From an original status as an apparently loose classification of
towns the three divisions came finally to have rather clearly marked
geographical boundaries, which have been discussed with great care
by Halbert.*"'^
There were variations of speech not only between the Sixtown
Indians and the rest but between the speech of the other parties,
but in course of time that of the western group, the Long People,
came to be recognized as standard Choctaw.
«» " District Divisions of the Clioctaw Nation," in Trans. Ala. Hist. Soc, i, pp. 375-385.
See map, PL 2.