Dec. 5.1873.] *±00 [Brinton. 



OX THE LANGUAGE OF THE NATCHEZ. 

 By D. G. Brinton, M. D. 



(Read before the American Philosophical Society, December oth, 1873.) 



Of all the native tribes inhabiting the Lower Mississippi, by the com- 

 mon consent of the early travelers the Natchez or Nache were the most 

 civilized. They were located ten or twelve miles below the site of the 

 city which now bears their name, and formed a community of five or 

 eight villages, each ruled despotically by a hereditary chief called a Sun, 

 themselves in subjection to a head Chief, the Great Sun, whose power 

 was absolute over both the life and property of his subjects. In this 

 respect they differed entirely from the tribes around them, whose Chiefs 

 were elective and limited in their control. 



The Nache furthermore had unusual skill in the arts, weaving a textile 

 fabric of the inner bark of the mulberry tree, with which they clothed 

 themselves, and displayed in the construction of their dwellings and tem- 

 ples, and in their mode of worship, more developed ideas than their neigh- 

 bors. They were accustomed to build artificial mounds, to sacrifice 

 slaves and children at their religious ceremonies, to maintain a perpetual 

 fire in their temples, and avowedly to worship the Sun. The only nation 

 with whom they claimed relationship, and who are said to have spoken 

 the same language, were the Taensas, a small tribe near the 1 iver, twelve 

 or fifteen leagues above them. This nation disappeared shortly after the 

 settlement of the country, uniting with the Tonicas, who seem to have 

 been also a related people.* 



The numerical strength of the Nache is very differently given by the 

 various early authorities, the maximum being 200,000 ! More sober state- 

 ments justify us in putting the number of fighting men in the whole 

 nation at about 800 or even 500. 



The origin or meaning of the name Nache is uncertain, and neither the 

 Maskoke or Creeks, nor the remnants of the tribe yet living can give any 

 explanation of it. The former call them simply Nache or Nachvlke (the 

 Nache people.) They have been known at times as the Apple or White 

 Apple Indians, the Apple being the translation given the name of their 

 principal village by the French. This village was twelve miles south of 

 the present City of Natchez, three miles from the Mississippi, on Second 

 Creek, and five miles from the French Fort, Rosalie. As early as 1699, 

 D'Iberville speaks of them as "the Natchez or Tpelois," the latter 

 word, properly Vpelois, being from vpe, meaning apple, or some such kind 

 of fruit. 



The attention which this nation has attracted from many writers in- 

 terested in American Ethnology, and their hitherto unknown affiliations, 

 have induced me to collect from various published and unpublished 

 sources whatever can throw light on their relationship, and also to obtain 



* See Penicaut, Annals of Louisiana, pp. 125-6 ; and Charlevoix, Journal Ilistoriquc, p. 

 433. 



