THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 539 
used for ordinary purposes. It was fed with sticks or billets of wood 
without the bark, placed so as to radiate from a common center some- 
what like the spokes of a wheel, the fire occupying the center or hub. 
It was kept in buildings or temples erected for the purpose, in which 
were also preserved the bones of the dead chieftains, neatly done up in 
cane baskets. Priests or guardians were appointed to watch over this 
fire, and see that it never died out, as its extinguishment was thought 
to forebode dire evil to the tribe.* In case such a thing did happen, 
either by accident or through carelessness, the fire could only be rekin- 
dled by brands taken from that kept burning in the temple of the Mau- 
biliens. + 
First among the priests or guardians of the temple and fire among 
the Natchez was the chief of the tribe, or, as he was called, the Great 
Sun.t Every morning at sunrise he appeared at the door of his cabin, 
and turning toward the east ‘“‘he howled three times,” bowing down 
tothe earth. Then a calumet, used only for this purpose, was brought 
him, and he smoked, blowing the smoke of the tobacco first towards the 
sun and then towards the other three quarters of the world.§ He 
acknowledged no superior but the sun, from which he pretended to 
derive his origin. || 
These temples did not differ materially from each other, nor from the 
other cabins, especially those of the Indian chiefs. Thedescription which 
the Sieur de Tonti has left us of the one among the Tensas, visited by him 
* Charlevoix Letter no. Xx1Ix, pp. 308 et seq.: London, 1763. Du Pratz, History 
of Louisiana, vol. 11, chapter 3, sections 2 and 4: London, 1763. Memoir of Tonti in 
Hist. Coll. of Louisiana, part 1, p.61. Father Le Petit in Hist. Coll, of Louisiana, 
part 11, note to p. 140 et seq. La Vega, Conquéte dela Floride, vol. 1, p. 266 et seq.: 
Paris, 1709. Gentleman of Elvas in Hist. Coll. of Louisiana, part 1, p. 123. Letter 
of Father Gravier in same, second series, pp. 79 et seq.: 1875. 
t Charlevoix, Letters, p. 323; London, 1763. 
¢Du Pratz, History of Louisiana, vol. 11, p. 212: London, 1763, 
§ Charlevoix, Letters, p. 315. Father Le Petit in Hist. Coll. Louisiana, part m1, 
note to p. 142. Father Douay’s Narrative of La Salle’s attempt to ascend the 
Mississippi in 1687; published in Shea’s Discovery and Exploration of that river, p. 
228. It wasin this expedition that La Salle was murdered, and the good father’s 
account relates to the tribes that were then living in what are now the States of 
Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. He says: ‘‘ The Sun is their divinity, and they 
offer it in sacrifice, the best of their chase in the chief’s cabin. They pray for half 
an hour, especially at sunrise; they send him the first whiff of their pipes, and then 
send one to each of the four cardinal points.” As late as the beginning of the 
present century, Nuttall tells us that, according to the testimony of a Quapaw 
chief, the ‘‘Osages smoked to God or the sun, and accompanied it by a short 
apostrophe:” Travels into the Arkansas Territory p. 95; Philadelphia, 1821. 
|| Charlevoix, Letters, p. 315. This belief was not confined to the Natchez, as the 
Hurons and also the tribes of the Floridian Peninsula asserted the same thing of 
their chiefs. See Charlevoix, Letters, p. 314, for the former, and Lafitau, Moeurs 
des Sauvages Ameriquains, vol. 1, pp. 181 and 456 for the latter. Bartram, Travels 
through Florida, p. 496, says that among the Creeks, ‘‘ the Micco seems the repre- 
sentative of the Great Spirit.” 
