Political Quotes

“along with Senator Kennedy, I wish to talk about the Coushatta Tribe. The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana is descended from a large, powerful sovereign nation of Coushatta-- Koasati--people who lived prosperously and peaceably for thousands of years in what is now the southeastern United States. The principal Coushatta--Koasati--villages were located on islands in the Tennessee River, in what is now south central Tennessee, which is where the Tribe was living when they first encountered the European explorer Hernando DeSoto in 1540. Koasati oral tradition also holds that they were always the most northerly of the Muskogean-speaking peoples. Tribal elders say that their villages were ``abon, fallami-fa'' which literally means ``above, to the north.'' They believe that their tribal name comes from ``Kowi iisa-fa aati-ha,'' which is literally translated as ``the people from [the lands] where the big cats live.'' Some elders believe that the name Coosa given by the Spanish to the affiliated group of villages, what is now called the Coosa chiefdom, was actually pronounced ``Kohosa'' and thus the people were called ``Kohosa Aati,'' literally translated as the people--of Kohosa. Numerous period maps support these oral traditions, identifying these islands as ``Cosauda''--Koasati, Coushatta, or some other spelling of the Tribe's name. These include the Franquelin map of 1684, the 1711 Crisp et. al. map, and the 1720 Moll map.…”