46 [78] TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



Indies. The ancient Virginians narcotized with it the fish in their 

 ponds or rivers, and, when surprised by a tempest, they scattered 

 it upon the excited waters, or threw it up into the air, to allay the 

 wrath of the deity who had stirred up the tempest,* 



The Indians on the Lower Mississippi had peculiar ceremonial 

 rites connected with speeches, long chants, processions in cos- 

 tumes, etc., when an ornamental pipe was presented and smoked 

 at peace treaties, conventions, the welcoming- of guests, superi- 

 ors, etc. ; this was called ''singing the calumet," or "chanter le 

 calumet." The tobacco-worship most frequently observed among 

 the prairielndians of the West (Comanches, Kayowe, Tonkawe, 

 etc.) is that of puffing the smoke first to the east, then to the 

 south, west, north, zenith and nadir. Usually they perform this 

 ceremony in an unconcerned and hardly perceptible way, so that 

 strangers not acquainted with the custom scarcely become aware 

 of it. The last two directions show that the ceremony is an act 

 of sun-worship, for they indicate the position of the sun at mid- 

 day and at midnight. 



Whenever the Creek conjurer desires to obtain anything by 

 jugglery, betakes a fawn's skin, puts into it sumach leaves, horse- 

 mint and common tobacco, places it around his neck and then 

 sings his conjurer's songs. These three ingredients form the 

 smoking tobacco of the Creeks, and sumach leaves make up more 

 than one-half of the mixture.f 



Other Physic-Herbs were the following : Twigs broken from 

 the cedar-tree^ atchina, served in ornamenting the heads or head- 

 dresses of the people at festive occasions. It also belonged to the 

 fourteen plants serving to concoct the infusion drunk on the last 

 day of the Kasi'hta busk, and was among the plants exhibited by 

 the mythic hayayalgij to the early Kasi'hta, Kawita, etc. people. 



Another plant in use among the Creeks as a medicinal herb 

 was the Asarum virginicum^ called by them "liitcha liibi 'lako," 



* A long series of facts concerning the Indian use of tobacco will be found in MUller's 

 •' Urreligionen," Brinton's " Myths of the New World," and in L. Carr, " Mounds of the 

 Mississippi Valley" (Kentucky Geolog. Survey, vol. ii. p. 51 sqq.) On the applicntioa of 

 tobacco, cf F. W. Putnam in Capt. G, M. Wheeler's Reports, vol. vii. p. 24 sqq. 



t Communicated by Gen. PI. Porter of Wialaka. 



X To hayayalgi compare tlie Creek term hayayagi, light, radiance. 



