page_title: Taensa
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Taensa / Culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Caption from first online source listed: "The Great Sun, Paramount Chief of the Natchez People" (drawing)
context_page_description: The Taensa were a Native American people whose settlements at the time of European contact in the late 17th century were located in present-day Tensas Parish, Louisiana. The meaning of the name, which has the further spelling variants of Taenso, Tinsas, Tenza or Tinza, Tahensa or Takensa, and Tenisaw, is unknown. It is believed to be an autonym. The Taensa should not be confused with the Avoyel, known by the French as the petits Taensas, who were mentioned in writings by explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1699. The Taensa are more closely related to the Natchez people and both are considered descendants of the late prehistoric Plaquemine culture.
  The Taensa migrated as a result of Chickasaw and Yazoo hostilities, first lower down the Mississippi River. In 1715, protected by the French, they migrated to lands near the now eponymously named Tensas River near Mobile, Alabama. When the French ceded Mobile and their other territory east of the Mississippi River to the English in 1763, following their defeat in the Seven Years' War, the Taensa and other small tribes returned to Louisiana, settling near the Red River. They numbered about 100 persons in 1805.
context_section_description: The Taensa were a Natchezan people who separated from the main body of the Natchez sometime prior to European contact with the Lower Mississippi Valley region. As such their languages, political, religious, and material cultures were very similar to the Natchez. When they first enter the historical record they are found just to the northwest of the Natchez and on the western bank of the Mississippi as opposed to its eastern bank.
  Like some other inhabitants of the area, such as the Natchez, Tunica, and Houma, Taensa society was matrilineal. Taensa society was also very hierarchical and showed marked class differences between commoners and elites, hallmarks of being a simple chiefdom. Chiefs exercised absolute power and were treated with great respect; unlike more egalitarian customs among the northern tribes the early chroniclers were used to. An example of this respect was recorded during a ceremonial visit by a chief to visit the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, when attendants came several hours in advance of the chief and with their hands swept the road clean.
caption: Drawing of the "Natchez Great Sun being carried in a litter", by du Pratz
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