Ishak

The Ishak, or Atakapa, are an Indigenous people of the Gulf coast of Louisiana and Texas, speaking a language isolate. Ishak means the people in their own tongue, while Atakapa is a Choctaw or Mobilian label meaning eater of human flesh. Their bands ranged from Texas's Trinity to Louisiana's Vermilion, wintering inland and moving to the coast in summer.

They fished from canoes, speared flounder by torchlight and hunted alligator and deer. Narváez expedition survivors, including Cabeza de Vaca, washed up among them in 1528. La Salle's 1685 colony drew Spanish and French expeditions there.

In 1760 French buyers acquired the Vermilion lands, whose band the Opelousa soon broke; in 1771 female leader Quitachoulabenak headed about 500 near Lafayette. After the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, epidemics and land loss thinned them, and in 1805 Indian agent John Sibley counted only about fifty fighting men among the Louisiana bands.