GATSCHET — KAS. LEG. COMMENTARY. [6l] 39 



Mississippi ; and many primitive nations, also Indians, believe 

 that the killing of certain kinds of game will bring insanity upon 

 those who kill them. Dr. Brinton has found a passage referring to 

 Blue-lips in "A State of the Province of Georgia," London, 1741, 

 (in P. Force's Coll.), p. i : ''The Blew-mouths and other Indians 

 live toward the South Sea." To this I add a passage from 

 "Views of Louisiana," by H. M. Bracken ridge (1814), p. 86 : 

 ^'Blue Mud and Longhair'd Indians ; numbers unknown, sup- 

 posed to reside somewhere on the heads of the Columbia River" ; 

 and another from a volume of '* American State Papers" (Land 

 Affairs), in a document, "A State of the Province of Georgia,'' 

 dated Savannah, Nov. 10, 1740: 'This province (of Georgia) 

 was once part of South Carolina, but the eastern and southern 

 parts of it inhabited by the Creek Indians, the northern by the 

 Cherokees and Chickasaws, the western by the Choctaws ; the 

 Blew-mouths and other Indian nations to the South Sea." If any 

 inference can be drawn from the term Blue-mouths^ we may re- 

 call the fact that the Comanches, Kayowes, Wichitas, Panis, and 

 3\\ Texan tribes painted their faces in all sorts of colors, and 

 often in the most repulsive manner. By the "South Sea" the Pa- 

 cific Ocean is meant, and all of the above tribes roamed on the 

 plains west of the Mississippi river. 



An instructive parallel to this is the legend mentioned by B. S. 

 Barton, "New Views on the Origin of Tribes or Nations of 

 America," Philad., 1798, p. xliv. : "The Cheerake tell us that 

 when they first arrived in the country which they inhabit, they 

 found it possessed by certain moon-eyed people^ who could not 

 see in day-time : these wretches they expelled." 



Benard de la Harpe, who at the head of troops explored, in 

 1 7 19, the countries along Red river, also speaks of a similar- 

 looking people ; see Margry, Decouv. vi. 292. 



" They heard a noise as of thunder ; and on the moun- 

 tain WAS A SOUND AS OF SINGING." Noiscs in nature are by prim- 

 itive man invariably attributed to some genius or spirit. Winds 

 have been deified and personified in all ages and climates, as in 

 Zephyros, Boreas, Wuotan, Hurakan, Kabibonokka, etc. ; also 

 the thunder and the echo. Wherever our legend speaks of noises 



