Description
The Tunica people are a group of linguistically and culturally related Native American tribes in the Mississippi River Valley, which include the Tunica (also spelled Tonica, Tonnica, and Thonnica); the Yazoo; the Koroa (Akoroa, Courouais); and possibly the Tioux. Over the next centuries, under pressure from hostile neighbors, the Tunica migrated south from the Central Mississippi Valley to the Lower Mississippi Valley. Eventually they moved westward and settled around present-day Marksville, Louisiana.
Language
Luhchi Yoroni
Culture
By the Middle Mississippian period, local Late Woodland peoples in the Central Mississippi Valley had developed or adopted a full Mississippian lifestyle, with intensive maize agriculture, hierarchical political structures, mussel shell-tempered pottery and participation in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Over the next centuries, settlement patterns changed to a pattern of more centralized towns, with defensive palisades and ditches, indicating a state of endemic warfare had developed between local competing polities. Material culture, such as pottery styles and mortuary practices, began to diverge at this point.