118 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [biill. 43 



by it of the place wliero thoy iiiny find sonic. Tims all is shared equally and 

 at the same thne consumed. 



Report beiufj; made to the great Sun he has the pot beaten and gives orders 

 to return to the village. The warriors are disposed in relays to bring back 

 their sovran in the same way that they brought him out, and when he arrives 

 he sends them out to hvmt, as much for himself as for them. Thus is termi- 

 nated the great Feast of Grain." 



While agreeing in outlines, Diimont's description differs in several 

 important details. From the current French name for the granary in 

 which the sacred corn was kept he calls it " the feast of the tun of 

 importance " {la fete de la tonne de valeur), and describes it thus: 



The feast of the tun of importance was ordinarily celebrated in July. This 

 so-called tun was nothing else than a round cabin, large and high, resembling 

 quite closely a tower, where every year at the beginning of harvest each savage 

 was obliged to bring the first of that which he gathered, whether in grain or 

 in fruits. Many guardians were appointed to see that no one carried away 

 any of that which was brought into this cabin, and they themselves were ex- 

 pressly prohibited from touching it, a regulation which was religiously observed. 

 Finally, the j^ear following they assembled some time before the harvest and 

 celebrated a general feast for the entire nation, in order to efit in common what 

 each had brought separately into this cabin. Here are what the ceremonies 

 were and what passed one year when the French commandant of the Natchez 

 post was present at these pastimes with many of the officers of his garrison. 



Eight days before it began the savages cut all the grass on the trail over 

 which their great chief, who was then the Tattooed-serpent,* would have to iwss ; 

 that is to say, for the space of about a league and a half, the distance between 

 the great village and this tun. At the same time they prepared many cabins 

 of branches around a beautiful oi)en space which they had prepared beside the 

 tun, and at the end of this open space they raised another cabin more ornate 

 than all the others, destined to serve as the palace of their chief. However, all 

 the women of the four Natchez villages — that is of the grand village, of the village 

 of the Apple, of Jensenac, and of the Gris " — had repaired to the same place 

 where during these eight days they were solely occupied in grinding maize in 

 order to make hominy, grain grol6, etc., and in preparing all the other things 

 which were necessary for their diversion. 



The day of this feast having arrived the savages stretched a beautiful bison 

 skin, daubed and painted in different colors, on a kind of litter, covered with a 

 fine cloth in the manner of a cradle, and on this litter they laid their great 

 chief who on that day was dressed in the French manner but without shoes. 

 This ceremony was made to the noise of many guns which the savages discharged 

 from time to time. Afterward all being ranged in a column of a width of four 

 or five men they raised the cradle in which was their chief upon their heads 

 and passing him from hand to hand from the great village to the place where 

 the tun was, they made him cover this entire route in the air much more 

 quickly than our Frenchmen could do it, although they were very well mounted, 

 since he was more than a quarter of an hour before them at this rustic camp 

 where he had himself held in the air until after they arrived. If by mischance 

 in this route the litter had fallen to the earth it would have cost his subjects 

 more than a hundred heads. 



« Du rratz, Hist de La Louisiane, ii, 363-381. 

 * An error. He was brother of the great chief. 

 "^ It seems strange that the name of the Flour village should be omitted. 



