The Biloxi tribe are Native Americans of the Siouan language family. They call themselves by the autonym Tanêks(a) in Siouan Biloxi language. When first encountered by Europeans in 1699, the Biloxi inhabited an area near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico near what is now the city of Biloxi, Mississippi. They were eventually forced west into Louisiana and eastern Texas. The Biloxi language--Tanêksąyaa ade--has been extinct since the 1930s, when the last known native semi-speaker, Emma Jackson, died. Today, remaining Biloxi descendants have merged with the Tunica and other remnant peoples. Together they were federally recognized in 1981; today they are called the Tunica-Biloxi Indian Tribe and share a small reservation in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. Descendants of several other small tribes are enrolled with them. The two main tribes were from different language groups: the Biloxi were Siouan-speaking and the Tunica had an isolate language. Today the tribe members speak English or French. History Little is known of Biloxi history prior to their contact with Europeans in 1699. Information about them has been derived from archeological studies, oral histories recounting their traditions, and materials of related tribes. They encountered the French Canadian Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville, who was establishing France's Louisiana colony. D'Iberville was told that the Biloxi nation was formerly quite numerous, but that their people were severely decimated by an epidemic of smallpox, which left an entire village abandoned and in ruins. D'Iberville described coming upon a deserted village in the late 17th century after the people had been stricken two years prior by disease. The village contained remnants of cabins made of mud, with roofs covered in tree bark (in Dorsey & Swanton 1912: 6). They could have contracted it from other peoples in contact with Europeans, among whom smallpox was endemic. The Native Americans had no immunity to the disease. Biloxis "were descendants of the mound-building Mississippian culture people...." (Brain 1990: 80). Although historically of Siouan-language origin, ancestors of the Biloxi shared similar cultural features with other peoples in the Southeast, what anthropologists call the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC). They were an agricultural society, in which women cultivated varieties of maize, beans and squash. The men supplemented the agrarian diet by hunting deer, bear, and bison (Kniffen et al. 1987). They fished year round.(Brain 1990). As in many largely agrarian societies, control of access to granaries and storage facilities, as well as controlled distribution of their