In an alternative theory the term derives from the Atakapa people, whose enslaved women were well known for forming marital unions with male African slaves in the early 1700s. The Atakapa word for "dance" is "shi" (rhymes with "sky") and their word for "the youths" is "ishol". In 1528 Spanish people, the first Europeans to contact the Atakapa, transliterated "shi ishol" as "zy ikol". Four hundred years later, the mixed-blood descendants of Atakapas and Africans would still sway in synchrony to their raucous music, but with a slightly evolved name: zydeco.