campaigns. Though they had "red" and "white" towns, the Alabama-Coushatta thought of themselves as a peace-loving people. By 1820, there were three main Alabama towns and three large Coushatta towns in east Texas, in the region known as the Big Thicket. In 1854, the Alabama were given 1,280 acres (5 km2) in Polk County. The following year, 640 acres (2.6 km2), also in Polk County, were given to the Coushattas. The Coushatta claim was disputed by white settlers in 1859. When the Coushatta lost the land claim, the Alabama invited them to live on their land claim. The federal government approved a large grant in 1928 to purchase additional land near the reservation; it was granted to the "Alabama and Coushatta tribes." Since that time, the reservation has officially been known as “Alabama-Coushatta". Origin myths focus on the interconnectedness of the tribes. One myth states that the two tribes sprouted from either side of a cypress tree. Another legend was recorded in 1857 from Se-ko-pe-chi, one of the oldest Creeks in Indian Territory. He said that the tribes “sprang out of the ground between the Cohawba and Alabama Rivers.” The symbol of the Alabama-Coushatta tribe comes from pre-contact Mississippian culture: two intertwined woodpeckers, now symbolic of the connection between the two tribes. Phonology Consonants There are fourteen consonant phonemes in Alabama: is apico-alveolar, . The voiceless stops are typically fortis and unlike in many other Southeastern languages they are not voiced between vowels. All consonants can occur geminated. The post-alveolar affricate is realized as when it occurs as the first member of a consonant cluster and the geminate is realized as . The only voiced obstruent in Alabama is , which is realized as when it occurs in coda (syllable final) position. The geminate is realized as . The two nasal phonemes become velar before the velar stop . In syllable-final position, is often realized as lengthening of the preceding vowel. Vowels There are three vowel qualities, . Vowel length is distinctive. Vowels can be nasalized in certain morphological contexts. Prosody In Alabama, the final syllable generally carries the primary stress, except in the case of certain grammatical operations which move the stress. There is also a pitch accent system with two contrastive tones: high-level and high-falling. The two phonemic tones have several different allophonic realizations depending on vowel length and neighboring consonants. References Sources Davis, Philip; & Hardy, Heather.