Arkokisa Indians. A people formerly living in villages chiefly along lower Trinity River, Tex. The Spanish presidio of San Agustin de Ahumada was founded among them in 1756, and 50 Tlascaltec families from south Mexico were settled there, but the post was abandoned in 1772. They were allied with the Aranama and the Attacapa, and were on friendly terms also with the Bidai, but their linguistic affinity is not known. According to Sibley they numbered about 80 men in 1760-70 and subsisted principally on shellfish and fruits, and in 1805 their principal town was on the west side of Colorado Rver of Texas, about 200 miles south west of Nacogdoches. They had another village north of this, between the Neches and the Sabine, nearer the coast than the villages of the Adai. Sibley speaks of the Arkokisa as migratory, but they could not always have been entitled to that characterization. It is probable that, owing to the conditions incident to the intrusion of the white race, the people became demoralized; their tribal relations were broken up, their numbers decimated by disease, and the remnant of them was finally scattered and disorganized. Of their habits very little is known; their language seems to have been distinct from that of their neighbors, with whom they conversed by signs. (A. C. F.)
