2 BUKEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



first part of the work. While comparatively insignificant in bulk it 

 is of the greatest importance in attempting to trace their earlier con- 

 dition, and indeed has a bearing on the pre-Columbian history of the 

 whole of North America. At the same time, the results of this field 

 work among remnant tribes would lose half of their value were they 

 not provided with a literary setting, which the writer has not hesitated 

 to furnish with as much liberality as the published nraterial will 

 allow, realizing meanwhile that the work of a compiler is usually a 

 thankless and abundantly criticised task. 



An examination of the material following will show that more 

 than two-thirds of the w^hole is concerned with the Natchez tribe 

 alone. This is due partly to the fact that it was the largest on the 

 lower Mississippi, and in the gulf region was exceeded only by the 

 ChoctaAv, Chickasaw, and Creeks, but far more to its strongly cen- 

 tralized system of government, to the sanguinary mortuary rites of its 

 ruling classes, and finally to the spectacular massacre perpetrated by 

 it uj)on the French settlers of Natchez in the year 1729 and the 

 bloody Avar which followed. These two last points in particular 

 appealed so strongly to French imaginations, and to the imaginations 

 of writers of other nations as well, that this tribe has been sur- 

 rounded by a glamour similar to that wdiich until recently enshrouded 

 the Aztec of Mexico and the Quichua of Peru, and it has been classi- 

 fied apart, both as to origin and grade of civilization, with the result 

 tliat the true Natchez tribe has become almost unknown. 



The principal authorities consulted are the following: 



P.AUDRY DE LoziERES. Vojage a la Lonisiaue et sur Le Continent de L'Ameriqiie 



Septentrionale fait dans les Annees 1794 h 1798. Paris, 1802. 

 Bossu. Travels through that part of North America formerly called Louisiana. 



Translated from the French by John Reinhold Forster, 2 vols., London, 



1771. 

 Charlevoix. History and General Description of New France, 6 vols., edited by 



John Gilmary Shea, New York, 1872. 

 Coxe, Daniel. A description of the English Province of Carolana, London, 



1741. Translated in French's Hist. Coll. of La., pp. 22,3-276, 1S50. 

 De Kerlerec. Ivai)port dn Chevalier De Kerlerec in Compte Rendu du Cougres 



International des Americanistes, 15th sess., i, 59-8G. 

 DuMONT DE MoNTioNV. Meiiioires Historiques sur La Louisiane, 2 vols., Paris, 



17.53. Edited by Le ^lascricr. 

 French. Historical Collections of Louisiana, 1846, 1850, 1851, 1853, 1869, 1875. 

 Gallatin. A synopsis of the Indian Tribes of North America. In Transactions 



and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, ii, ('.•iinl)ridge, 1836. 

 Gatsciiet. a Migration Legend of the Creek Indians. Vol. i in Brinton's 



Library of Aboriginal American Literature, I'hiladelphia, 1884. Vol. ii in 



Transactions of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, St. Louis, 1888. 

 The Shetimasha Indians of St. Mary's Parish, Southern Louisiana, in 



Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington, ii, 148-158. 



