Part 24 (1/2)
3. SAN PEDRO, in the district of Malacatepec, and _alcaldia_ of Nexapa.
It contains 80 Indian families, who trade in wool, and the fish called _bobo_, which are caught, in large quant.i.ties, in a considerable river of the district.
4. ZITLALA. It consists of 198 Indian families, and is a league and a half N. of its head settlement of this name.
5. SENTEPEC, a settlement 15 leagues N.E. of its capital. The temperature is cold. It has 42 Indian families.
6. ATOTONILCO, in the _alcaldia mayor_ of Tulanzingo. It contains 115 Indian families, and has a convent of the religious order of St.
Augustine. It is 2 leagues N. of its head settlement.
ACATLANZINGO, a settlement of 67 Indian families of Xicula of the _alcaldia mayor_ of Nexapa, who employ themselves in the culture of cochineal plants. It lies in a plain, surrounded on all sides by mountains.
ACAXEE, a nation of Indians in the province of Topia. They are represented to have been converted to the catholic faith by the society of Jesuits in 1602. They are docile and of good dispositions and abilities. One of their ancient customs consisted of bending the heads of their dead to their knees, and in this posture, putting them in caves, or under a rock and at the same time, depositing a quant.i.ty of food for their supposed journey in another state. They also exhibited a farther coincidence with the customs of the northern Indians, by placing a bow and arrows with the body of the dead warrior, for his defence.
Should an Indian woman happen to die in child-bed, they put the surviving infant to death, as having been the cause of its mother's decease. This tribe rebelled against the Spanish in 1612, under the influence of a native prophet, but they were subdued by the governor of the province, Don Francisco de Ordinola.
ACAXETE, SANTA MARIA DE, the head settlement of the district of Tepcaca, on the slope of the _sierra_ of Tlascala. It consists of 176 Mexican Indians, 7 Spanish families, and 10 Mustees and Mulatoes. In its vicinity there is a reservoir of hewn stone, to catch the waters of the mountain, which are thence conducted to Tepcaca, three leagues N.N.W.
ACAXUCHITLAN, a curacy consisting of 406 Indian families of the bishopric of La Peubla de los Angelos. It is in the _alcaldia_ of Tulanzingo, lying 4 leagues E. of its capital.
ACAYUCA, the capital of a civil division of New Spain, in the province of Goazacoalco, embracing, in its population, 296 families of Indians, 30 of Spaniards, and 70 of mixed bloods. It lies a little over 100 leagues S.E. of Mexico, in lat. 17 53' N.
ACAZINGO, ST. JUAN DE, a settlement of the district of Tepcaca, consisting of 700 families of Indians, 150 of Spaniards, 104 of Mustees, and 31 of Mulatoes. It is situated in a plain of mild temperature, well watered, and has a convent and fountain, and a number of ”very ancient buildings.”
ACCoCESAWS, a tribe of Indians of erratic habits, of Texas, whose princ.i.p.al location was formerly on the west side of the Colorado, about 200 miles S.W. of Nacogdoches. At a remoter period they lived near the gulf of Mexico: they made great use of fish, and oysters. Authors represent the country occupied, or traversed by them, as exceedingly fertile and beautiful, and abounding in deer of the finest and largest kind. Their language is said to be peculiar to themselves; they are expert in communicating ideas by the system of signs. About A.D. 1750 the Spanish had a mission among them, but removed it to Nacogdoches.
ACCOMAC, a county of Virginia, lying on the eastern sh.o.r.es of Chesapeak bay. This part of the sea coast was inhabited by the Nantic.o.kes, who have left their names in its geography. We have but a partial vocabulary of this tribe, which is now extinct. It has strong a.n.a.logies, however, to other Algonquin dialects. Aco, in these dialects, is a generic term, to denote a goal, limit, or fixed boundary. Ahkee, in the Nantic.o.ke, is the term for earth, or land. Auk, is a term, in compound words of these dialects, denoting wood. The meaning of accomac, appears to be _as far as the woods reach_, or, the boundary between meadow and woodlands.
ACCOMACS, one of the sub tribes inhabiting the boundaries of Virginia on its discovery and first settlement. Mr. Jefferson states their numbers in 1607 at 80. In 1669, when the legislature of Virginia directed a census of the Indian population, within her jurisdiction, there appears no notice of this tribe. They inhabited the area of Northampton county.
They were Nantic.o.kes--a people whose remains united themselves or at least took shelter with the Lenapees, or Delawares.
ACCOHANOCS, a division or tribe of the Powhetanic Indians, numbering 40, in 1607. They lived on the Accohanoc river, in eastern Virginia.
ACCOMENTAS, a band, or division of the Pawtucket Indians inhabiting the northerly part of Ma.s.sachusetts in 1674. (Gookin.)
ACHAGUA, a nation of Indians of New Grenada, dwelling in the plains of Gazanare and Meta, and in the woods of the river Ele. They are bold and dexterous hunters with the dart and spear, and in their contests with their enemies, they poison their weapons. They are fond of horses, and rub their bodies with oil, to make their hair s.h.i.+ne. They go naked except a small _azeaun_ made of the fibres of the aloe. They anoint their children with a bituminous ointment at their birth, to prevent the growth of hair. The brows of females are also deprived of hair, and immediately rubbed with the juice of _jagua_, which renders them bald ever after. They are of a gentle disposition but addicted to intoxication. The Jesuits formerly reduced many of them to the Catholic faith, and formed them into settlements in 1661.
ACHAFALAYA, the princ.i.p.al western outlet of the Mississippi river. It is a Choctaw word, meaning, ”the long river,” from _hucha_, river, and _falaya_, long. (Gallatin.)
ACKOWAYS, a synonym for a band of Indians of New France, now Canada. See Acouez.
ACKEEKSEEBE, a remote northern tributary of the stream called Rum river, which enters the Mississippi, some few miles above the falls of St.
Anthony, on its left banks. It is a compound phrase, from Akeek, a kettle, and seebe, a stream. It was on the margin of this stream, in a wide and s.p.a.cious area, interspersed with beaver ponds, that a detachment of Gen. Ca.s.s's exploring party in July 1820, encamped; and the next morning discovered an Indian pictorial letter, written on bark, detailing the incidents of the march.
ACKEEKO, or the Kettle chief, a leading Sauc chief who exercised his authority in 1820, at an important Indian village, situated on the right banks of the Mississippi, at Dubuque's mines.
ACHQUANCHICoLA, the name of a creek in Pennsylvania; it signifies in the Delaware or Lenapee language, as given by Heckewelder, the brush-net fis.h.i.+ng creek.
ACHWICK, a small stream in central Pennsylvania. It denotes in the Delaware language, according to Heckewelder, brushy, or difficult to pa.s.s.
ACOBAMBA, a settlement in the province of Angaraes in Peru, near which are some monumental remains of the ancient race, who inhabited the country prior to its conquest by the Spanish. They consist, chiefly, of a pyramid of stones, and the ruins of some well sculptured stone couches, or benches, now much injured by time.