Of the Lower Mississippi tribes the most powerful and populous was that of the Naktche, settled at the beginning of the eighteenth century in nine villages on and about St. Catherine creek (Lúkfi-ákula in Cha'hta: "_clay-digging place_," to daub houses with), in a beautiful and fertile country. This stream wends its way first south, then west, in a semi-circular course, around the present city of Natchez, Mississippi, and runs at an average distance of three to four miles from it. Other Naktche villages existed in its vicinity.