A French explorer, one Brinson, had noted…
1706 CE
A French explorer, one Brinson, had noted in his journal passing near the village of the “Oumas” in 1682.
This brief mention marks the entry of the Houmas into recorded history.
Later explorers, such as Henri de Tonti and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, give a fuller description of the early Houma.
Iberville reported the Houma village to be some six to eight miles inland from the east bank of the Mississippi near the mouth of the Red River.
The Houma tribe, thought to be Muskogean speaking like other Choctaw tribes, had been recorded living along the Red River on the east side of Mississippi River, by the French explorer La Salle in 1682.
Because their war emblem is the saktce-ho’ma, or Red Crawfish, anthropologist John R. Swanton has speculated that the Houma are an offshoot of the Yazoo River region’s Chakchiuma tribe, whose name is a corruption of saktce-ho’ma. (Pritzker, Barry M. Native American: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture and Peoples Vol. 2, p. 550)
Individuals in the tribe had maintained contact with other Choctaw communities after settling in lower Lafourche-Terrebonne.
It is not certain exactly how the Houma came to settle near the mouth of the Red River, formerly called the River of the Houma.
The French explorers find them at the site of present-day Angola, Louisiana.
When the Europeans arrive in greater number in the area, they think each settlement represents a different tribe.
While being guided through the area north of Lake Pontchartrain, Iberville and his men ask their Bayougoula guides the identity of a group on the far bank of a particular bayou.
The guides respond that these are the mugulashai, meaning “the people on the other side (of the bayou).” They were more likely a band of the Bayougoula people who, like the Houma, are of Choctaw origin.
In historic times, several bands of Choctaw migrate into the Louisiana area.
Today they are known as the Jena, Clifton, and Lacombe bands.
The Houma in 1706 leave their villages in the Red River region for more southern areas.
One account is that they wanted to move closer to their new French allies and away from the English-allied tribes to the north.
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