544 THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
was carried off and distributed among the families of the village. The 
women and children solaced themselves in their separate families, and 
in the evening repaired to the public square, where they danced, sung, 
and rejoiced during the whole night, observing a proper and exemplary 
decorum; this they continued three days, and on the four following 
days they received visits and rejoiced with their friends from neighbor- 
ing towns, who had all purified and prepared themselves.” 
There were other rites and ceremonies connected with the worship of 
these tribes that might be studied to advantage; but those reported 
above were the most important, and will give a very good idea of the 
ritual as developed among these people. As has been said, the relig- 
ious cult seems to have reached a higher level here than it attained 
elsewhere in the Mississippi Valley;* and hence, in comparing, as we 
shall now do, their rights and customs with those of the tribes that 
lived north of the Ohio, and belonged to the Huron and Algonquin 
families, we must expect to find among the latter a falling off in the 
forms and ceremonies, rude as they undoubtedly were, that character- 
ized the religious observances of the tribes with which we have been 
dealing. 
Beginning with the tribes along the south Atlantic coast we find 
that temples existed as far north as Virginia, and that the same reli- 
gious customs obtained as did among the sun-worshiping nations of 
the lower Mississippi, t Lawson, Capt. Smith, and Beverly speak of these 
temples, or quioccosan, as they are called, as being very sacred, none 
but the king conjurer and a few old men being permitted to enter them.t 
“Tylor, Primitive Culture, p.288. Boston reprint, 1874. 
tAfter describing the temple and religious customs of the Natchez, Lafitau, vol. 
I, p. 168, Paris, 1724, says: “‘Quelques peuples de la Virginie et de la Floride ont 
aussi des Temples et a peu pres les mémes devoirs de Religion.” ‘‘Sunne, Moone, 
and Starre as pettie Gods.” Harriot in Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. 111, p. 336: London, 
1810. ‘Adore fire, water, lightning.” Capt. Smith, Virginia, p. 34: London, 1632. 
‘Their religion consists of adoration of the sun and moon:” Carolina, by Thomas 
Ash, p. 36: London, 1682. ‘In the morning, by break of day, before they eat or 
drink, both men and women and children that be above 10 years of age, run into the 
water, there wash themselves a good while, till the sun riseth, then offer sacrifice to it, 
strewing tobacco on the water or land, honoring the Sun as their God; likewise they 
do at the setting of the sun:” Observations in Virginia by George Perey, in Purchas 
Pilyrims, vol. Iv, p. 1690. “‘It is a generall rule of these people when they swere by 
their God, which is the Sunne, no Christian will keepe their Oath better upon this 
promise. These people have a great reverence to the Sunne above all other things at 
the rising and setting of the same, they sit downe, lifting up their hands and eyes to 
the Sunne, making a round circle on the ground with dried Tobacco; then they 
begin to pray, making many Devilish gestures with a Hellish noise, foming at the 
mouth,” ete.: Ibid., p. 1690: London, 1625. ‘They give great reverence to the Sun:” 
Strachey, Historie of Travaile into Virginia, in publication of the Hakluyt Society, 
p. 93: London, 1849. 
} Beverly, History of Virginia, part 111, p. 28: London, 1705. Lawson, Carolina, 
p. 211: London, 1718. Capt. Smith, in Purchas Pilgrims, vol, 1v, p. 1701: London, 
1625. 
