The name Atakapas has been spelled variously through the past three centuries. Henry R. Schoolcraft, America's first universal authority on the American Indians, spelled the name Attukapas on page 35 in Volume VI of his work, "History of the Indian Tribes of the United States" (1854). And he spelled Attacapas on page 325 in Volume II. Attakapas is considered a modern spelling that is often encountered at the present time. It is based on the slur word (cannibal) for all the Indians living to the Choctaws' west. The French in Louisiana generally adopted that spelling. In 1885 the Smithsonian Institute's Indian languages expert, Albert S. Gatschet, chose a simplified spelling, Atakapas.

The earliest physical description of the Ishaks was made by Cabeza de Vaca after he and his Spanish mates were saved from shipwrech and starvation by the people whom he called the Han people. Swanton wrote that Han probably reflects the word by which the Ishaks called their dwellings. Cabeza de Vaca described Ishaks as well built; translate it as well formed, handsome. His stay among them, from 1528 to about 1535, happened more than a century and a half before other Spaniards intruded permanently into the Ishaks' homeland.

Martin Duralde, Spanish commander of the Attakapas Post at what is now Franklin, Louisiana, revealed in the mid-1700's what he supposed was the Atakapas' idea of the origin or genesis. He claimed to have learned presumably from the Indians, that they considered themselves a people who came out of the sea. Archaeologist, Dr. Chip McGimsey, Louisiana University in Lafayette, in letter of June 2, 1997, to Hugh Singleton, historian and linguist, Lake Charles, LA., maintained that the current evidence shows that...Ishaks simply represent the historic descendants of people who had been living in this region, (i.e. the northwestern crescent of the Gulf Coast) for thousands of years.

According to findings of some archaeologists in Southwest Louisiana, revealed in an article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1996, there is evidence of human habitation over the past 10,000 years in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, near the apex area of the Ishaks' ancient homeland. But over the millennia many different peoples could have inhabited that area. It would have attracted tribes by its red earth deposits useful for pottery making. It is an area that presently attracts seekers after relics of the ancient Indians.

The prehistorical Ishaks in Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas were hunters, fishers, and gatherers. The Ishaks hunted with bow and arrow, which they call te n o n tik (bow and string and arrow). Unlike today's users of the bow, the Ishaks did not forget to include the all important string in naming that hunting implement. The string for their main hunting bow was of triple-twisted sinews. Its bow of hickory wood stood 4-1/2 feet tall, and was the product of generations of careful craftsmanship. The bow was so powerful it could send an arrow clean through a bull bison.

Through prehistorical times the Ishak ancestors of the Atakapas hunted the bison. Hence, they were a nomadic people following the wandering herd. When hunting deer, sometimes the Ishaks chose to run a deer to exhaustion rather than slay it with arrow.

The Ishaks were also fishers. Long before Europeans arrived, Ishaks harvested the waters of Southwest Louisiana/Southeast Texas, which were teeming with fish. They caught fish by hand, by net, by hooked bone, by weirs (traps), by arrow and by spear. They harvested salt water oysters along the length of their homeland's coast. They dried and smoked oysters and shrimp and other seafoods for consumption and for barter.

The Ishaks were also gatherers, nomads often on the move by the seasons, gathering food and useful items. They gathered and packed pecans for barter via the ancient trade routes of the Indians. Their forways for gathering food in what is now S.W. LA/S.E. TX found them tramping their forests there and camping on the more than half a dozen streams in their homeland. They looked for roots, berries, nuts, wild grapes, persimmons, and other fruits, along with other useful plants like sedges and rushes for making mats and baskets. They gathered also medicinal plants for remedies.

The Indians' concept of land ownership was that an individual did not own land. The tribe owned areas the limits of which were fixed in the minds of the tribesmen, and they used those lands as hunting grounds. The lands were largely bypassed and overlooked by early Europeans and later were in the heart of the Louisiana Purchase "No Man's Land." After the Louisiana Purchase, the United States Land Office attempted to determine which previous sales of land should be recognized as having been valid and which fraudulent. The commissioners classified the claims, and most of the Indian claims appear to have fallen in two classes, "B" and "C". The "B" claims were recommended for confirmation and the "C" claims were not.

An example of a "B" class as contained in "AMERICAN STATE PAPERS - PUBLIC LANDS": Francois Brusard claim for 730 acres was originally claimed by Bernard, Attakapas Chief. Classed as "C" was 3,333 acres claim by John Coleman, originally claimed by Attakapas Indians.

Historically Ishaks were called Atakapas, a Choctaw slur, by the Spaniards and then by the French in Louisiana which gave the Ishak people an ugly reputation, rumor of which continues through today. Descendants of the Atakapa Indians exist unrecognized and misnamed under various names of choice like Creoles, Creole Indians, and Creoles of Color. The term colored has clouded the Atakapas' racial identity. Atakapa descendants show a wide range of complexions which is attributed to the genes for light or brown complexions. Many Atakapas no longer know their correct racial identity.

The naming of US Highway 190 between the Sabine River and DeRidder, LA, as the Atakapa-Coushatta Trace is attributed to the fact that Atakapa Indians inhabited and traversed Beauregard Parish. It is more clearly defined as part of the Atakapa foot trails in the Atakapas' homeland that reached as far North as parts of present-day Natchitoches, Rapides, and Sabine Parishes and parishes lying along all the S.E. Texas and S.W. Louisiana coast. The Atakapa have been identified as the only tribe consisting of six bands to inhabit all of Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas for centuries prior to habitation by Europeans.

Historical Marker memorializing the Atakapas-Ishak is situated adjacent to the Junction, US Hwy 190 and LA Hwy 111, between Merryville and DeRidder, Louisiana, which is an integral part of the ancestral homeland.

They are two brothers and their sister, left to right, ages 8, 6, and 4 respectively. You see them in typical, sun-tanned complexions of summer. Their remainder-of-the-year, clear-honey complexions take on a million-dollar tan from the steady summer sun sitting over the Gulf's Northwestern Crescent. For 12,000 years, the archeologists say, that spacious crescent of the Gulf of Mexico has been the prehistorical and historical home of these children's Ishak (that word means 'The People') ancestors of S.W. LA/S.E. Texas.

The earliest intruders, Spaniards, saw the aboriginal Ishak as, overall, of a "tinted" complexion. "Pueblo Tinto y Libero" they called the Ishak. "Tinto" is the Spanish word that most closely could express the Ishak's wide range of complexions, due to (as we now know from the research by geneticists) North American Indians' totally mixing/mingling of their genes throughout this continent long, long before any other people, e.g. Europeans, intruded here. "Libero" or "Free" tells that Queen Isabella forbade the enslaving of her subjects, ancestors of children like these three.

Later, in their turn to rule in Louisiana, the French translated Spaniards' name for the Ishak aboriginals as "Peuple du Couleur et Libre" ("Free People of Color"). Notice that both "tinto" and "couleur" in the Spanish and French names have nothing to do with, and carry no connotation of, African or Negro. That connotation was to be sneaked in later (forced in, rather) when the French rulers saw benefits to themselves by so doing, and a strategy for so doing with the cooperation of a compliant Catholic Church. To assure itself of that necessary cooperation the French Regime had to throw that Church a bone...a monopoly in religion through all of the Regime.

As stated by one critic: "Mouton has cooked up some delicious chicken gumbo for the soul...taste it!" Gary Norsault

A. The Atakapa-Ishak Indians lived in six bands, or groups, across Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas, from Galveston and Trinity Bays in Texas to Vermilion Bay in Louisiana on the Gulf's coast, and up away from the coast in both States, as far up as above Alexandria in Louisiana and about Jasper in Texas. These Indians' ancestors were inhabitants of that large area in the Gulf's northwestern crescent for thousands of years before their historical era began with the intrusion by Europeans, first Spanish, then French. The name ATAKAPA is a Choctaw Indian slur shunned by the native people in S.W. Louisiana but widely propagated by the European intruders, especially the French, for its demoralizing effect on the native people. The name ISHAK is the native people's own name for themselves. The lake lying alongside I-10 is called Lake Charles today. The Indians called it TUL TEU ("End Lake"). They lived all around Tul Teu on its curving shoreling.

B. Prien Lake can be reached off I-210, Lake Street exit. The Atakapa-Ishak Indians called it YUKITI TUL ("Indian Lake'). In 1885 the Smithsonian recorded the Atakapa Language at a village site that sat on Yukiti Tul. A small park at the lake's edge is convenient for the tourist. It has been reported that in 1924 the last Indian dwellers around Yukiti Tul were chased off their ancestral lake by Lake Charles' powers. A third lake is Calcasieu Lake. It lies about 12 miles south of Yukiti Tul on the Calcasieu River's southward flow. It is prominent in the lives of the Atakapa-Ishak Indians in the Lake Charles City Area. The Indians' name for it was TUL HETS. That means "Big Lake." Descendants of the Atakapa-Ishaks living in Lake Charles still tend to call that lake "Big Lake" instead of Calcasieu Lake. Diggings show that Tul Hets' shore line was heavily inhabited by the Atakapa Ishak Indians.

C. The Dummyline neighborhood, (which is drive-by viewing only), can be reached off both I-10 and I-210 at the Enterprise Boulevard exits. From I-210 exit, go north on Enterprise Boulevard for about 4 miles to Mill Street. Mill Street is the east-west axis of The Dummyline ghetto's grid of streets. That grid of dirt streets was scraped out of the empty prairie which lay a couple of miles east of the fledgling Lake Charles City snuggling in at Tul Teu's west shoreline. The grid of dirt streets became home to Atakapa-Ishak Indians of the Calcasieu River Band, Indians chased away from their lakeshore dwelling sites. By the turn of the 1900's their numbers were growing with prairie-dwelling Opelousas Band. These Indians came to Lake Charles City for jobs in the growing, young town. A tour of Mill Street's eastward stretch will bring the tourist to a railroad crossing. That railroad is a switching track called The Dummyline. The neighborhood took its name from the rail line. In time, The Dummyline became the home also of descendants of Africans. All the inhabitats of that neighborhood were termed "coloreds" by the city's powers, even on legal documents! "Coloreds" afterwards then "legally" were equated with "Negro", then with "Black", and now with "African American"....A VERY SURE way toward blurring the racial lines that really existed between Native Americans and Descendants of Africans! Observant tourists in The Dummyline will notice the wide range of complexions among the so-called "Creoles" there. While Southwest Louisiana long has considered the "Creoles" descendants of Africans because some of them show a dark brown complexion, that consideration really runs against the correct racial identity of the Atakapa-Ishak Indians. These Indians prominently show a wide range of complexions, AS DO ALL THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES! That range of complexions can show even among siblings! It is not necessarily the result of interracial mixing between Indians and descendants of Africans!!! Geneticists and specialists in Indian studies now tell us Indians wide range of complexions is the result of the intertribal mixing that when on through the length and breath of the North American continent through thousands of years before Europeans intruded here!!! The complexions of Indians genetically range from dark brown to ivory. (Source: Leacock and Lurie, THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE). Glimpses of the people and life in The Dummyline can be seen in two works by Lake Charles' Atakapa-Ishak author, Hubert Daniel Singleton: BY AND BY ON THE ATAKAPA PRAIRIE and ATAKAPA TAMALE MAN.

2. LACASSINE PRAIRIE

From Lake Charles go I-10 east 15 miles to LA Hwy 99. Exit and park where safe on the shoulder of that rural road. The open land lying all around is the Lacassine Prairie, an ancient hunting ground for the old Atakapa-Ishaks, probably going back even into prehistorical times. The area is grazing and resting grounds for flocks of migratory wild ducks and geese. Long before descendants of European intruders into Southwest Louisiana, this prairie land was recognized as the area's Indians hunting grounds. Because the area lies midway between the Calcasieu River Band of Atakapa-Ishak Indians and the Mermentau River Band both tribes probably hunted here. The Indians' name for the area was LOK O'SHIN. That means" at the prairie's edge". The French phoneticized that Indian name to Lacassine. The name is topographically correct, for the area lies where the pine woodlands of Calcasieu Parish to the west meet the flat, relatively treeless prairielands of Jeff Davis Parish. The ancient Indians would have perfected the use of Blinds to find themselves within an arrow's range of the birds. An abundance of exquisitely made bird points are generally found wherever their artifacts are unearthed. In historical times the Indians quickly adopted the Europeans' firearms for hunting. They called a shotgun PEM KAT TSIK. That means "a shooter with two mouths".

3. MERMENTAU TOWN AND RIVER

From the Lacassine Prairie drive east on I-10 about 8 miles and exit at LA Hwy 26 to the south. Join US Hwy 90 there and continue east for about another 8 miles to the town and river called Mermentau. You are now at the heart of the ancient dwelling site of the Mermentau Band of Atakapa-Ishak Indians. Their village sites lay all up the Mermentau River to the north and down its flow to the south where it forms Lake Arthur before flowing farther south to the Gulf. The name Mermentau has a very interesting etymology. It is the now unrecognizable name of the Historical Atakapa-Ishak chief Inmantau. The name's change to Mermentau is due to five alterations in the form of the chief's original name. The etymology of the name is too lengthy to present here, but it is carefully detailed in Hubert Daniel Singleton's work, THE INDIANS WHO GAVE US ZYDECO.

4. CROWLEY

From Mermentau continue eastward on US Hwy 90 to the city of Crowley, about 11 miles. Crowley calls itself the Rice Capital City. It lies in Southwest Louisiana's widespread rice growing area. The city has long seen many Atakapa-Ishak Indians of the Mermentau River Band among its citizens, but like the Atakapa-Ishak Indians of the Calcasieu River Band back at Lake Charles, they are not recognized as Indians by the European descended population (Cajuns to a large percentage). Cajuns, especially, by some particular mindset of their own, considered these Indians' wide range of complexions a sign of an obnoxious (to Cajuns) racial admixture with descendants of Africans. Cajuns allowed themselves no clue that the wide range of complexions in the Atakapa-Ishak Indians, as in all the Indians of North America, is due to the native peoples' prehistorical, millenia-long INTERTRIBAL Indians of North America, is due to the native peoples' prehistorical, millenia-long INTERTRIBAL MIXING. Crowley, too, long has forced its Atakapa-Ishak Indians into a ghetto like THE DUMMYLINE in Lake Charles where they lived side by side with descendants of Africans. The tourist can find that ghetto in Crowley by driving to the vicinity of St. Theresa Catholic Church FOR BUT A DRIVE-BY VIEW OF THE CHURCH AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. A Catholic church is found in the ghetto of many of the sizeable towns in Southwest Louisiana for Atakapa-Ishak Indians have been Catholics since the late 1700's.

5. EUNICE

From Crowley drive LA Hwy 13 northward to Eunice, about 19 miles. Halfway to Eunice the highway leaves the territory of the Indians' Mermantau Band and enters that of the Opelousas Band. Approaching Eunice the highway cuts through the flat terrain of the Faquetaic Prairie. That now almost forgotten stretch of prairie was so named by the Indians of the Mermantau Band. It lay on the route of their ancient foot trail which branched northward from their villages on the lower Mermentau and Nezpique Bayou to intercept the east-west trail that led to the Atakapas' trading post at Opelousas. FAQUETAIC is one of the Atakapa-Ishak Indians' terms for "trail". Its literal meaning is "footsteps straight". Eunice lies near the heart of the Atakapa-Ishak Indians' homeland. Many of the people in and from the Eunice area remain aware of their Indian identity and their roots in Southwest Louisiana. The Atakapa-Ishak Indians' gift to the nation, zydeco, is a lively dance that has come down from the Indians' prehistorical era. It is their good-time dance. Some of its most ardent promoters live in the Eunice area today. They show the physical features of the Atakapa-Ishak Indians including a wide range of complexions. Eunice, too, has a ghetto where descendants of the area's Indians and descendants of Africans long were forced by law to live together. The Catholic Church that serves the ghetto's Catholics at Eunice is St. Mathilda Church.

6. MAMOU AND PIN CLAIR

From Eunice continue north on LA Hwy 13. The town of Mamou is 10 miles away. It is an old habitation area of the Atakapa-Ishak Indians' Opelousas Band. The Atakapa name MAMOU means "where to come to", or approximately, "destination". To Mamou was relocated the little Catholic Church that once served the Atakapa-Ishak Indians at the settlement of Pin Clair. To reach Pin Clair's site, continue north on LA Hwy 13 to its junction with LA Hwy 10, about 6 miles north of Mamou. Turn left (west) on LA Hwy 10. Pin Clair's now empty settlement site lies about 3 miles west on LA Hwy 10, about where pine trees begin to line the highway's north side. The settlement's inhabitants have gone their separate ways now, but back in the 1920's one of the Mother Katherine Drexel's rural schools stood there. A short distance west, on the highway's south side, Pin Clair Cemetery lies partly hidden by untrimmed shrubbery. Katherine Drexel was the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania heiress to a fortune who founded a religious order for serving Indians and descendants of Africans. When the foundress entered Southwest Louisiana to open small schools at Pin Clair and elsewhere she was not cognizant enough to recognize that the people there, of a wide range of complexions, were Indians, not descendants of Africans. Or if she did recognize their true race, she and her nuns never acknowledged the Indians among their charges as Indians. To some extent, then, Mother Katherine's and her nuns' indifference in the matter contributed to the confusion so many Atakapa-Ishak Indians' descendants today suffer about their true racial identity.

7. OAKDALE

From the Pin Clair area continue west on LA highway 10. The Atakapa-Ishak Indians' old settlement called Beaver and its Delafosse Cemetery (watch for small sign north side of the highway) are about 10 miles away. Six miles west beyond Beaver is the town of Oakdale. All this area was more heavily inhabited than it is today by the Atakapa-Ishak Indians of the Opelousas Band. They were called 'Blackfoot Indians', a localized name that had nothing to do with the Blackfeet Indians of the U.S. Rocky Mountains. The name 'Blackfoot' came from the Opelousas Band's custom of painting their lower legs black for mournful ceremonies. That same custom existed among the Atakapa-Ishak Indians elsewhere in Southwest Louisiana/Southeast Texas, but it seems that no other Band besides the Opelousas Band was called "Blackfoot" for it.

8. GRANT

From Oakdale continue west on LA Hwy 10 for about 19 miles to the intersection with LA Hwy 112. Go south on Hwy 112 for about 12 miles to the settlement of Grant. At Grant stands the last Indian mound in the Atakapa-Ishak homeland.

9. DERIDDER

From Grant drive LA Hwy 112 about 20 miles westward to the city of DeRidder ('the Knight'). Visit the private museum of Velmer Smith. View her collection of Atakapa-Ishak Indians' arrowheads. These Indians did not import their arrowheads. They made their own from blanks or chunks of hard rock (preferably flint from North Central Texas). Notice the careful craftmanship. A commendation to the Atakapa-Ishak Indians was executed in form of a roadside marker of acknowledgement to the Indians for their ancient system of foot trails connecting their six Bands through Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas. The foot trails crossed numerous streams in the Indians' old homeland. Indications are that some sections of their foot tails became the precurser route for stretches of modern era highways. The roadside marker was erected at the Junction, intersection of US Hwy 190 and LA Hwy 111 between DeRidder and Merryville.

10. MERRYVILLE

From the Junction, site of the historical marker, continue on US Hwy 190 to Merryville. Merryville sits squarely in territory shared by both the Calcasieu River Band of the Atakapa-Ishak Indians and the Indians' Neches-Sabine Rivers Bands.

11. IN "NO MAN'S LAND"