154 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



I repaired to the great chief of war, of whom I asked whether many people 

 would die. He answered, " If the French had not spoken the road from my 

 brother's cabin to the temple would have been strewn with the dead. Only 

 the old women will die. I have already sent back more than 30 young people 

 who wished to die. After all, is not my brother prec-ious? Is he a Stinkard? 

 And what will the chief of the spirits say if he sees him come entirely alone? 

 He will say this is not a chief, and he will drive him from before his face. 

 Besides, his two wives have always walked and eaten with him. They must 

 go with him, and when 20 guns and 20 coverings of Limhourg shall be given 

 they will not seek to avoid death." 



After this reply I left him, and I found the wife of the Tattooed-serpent, 

 who said to all the Frenchmen, " Come and eat with me. I have never eaten 

 with the French. Now, that I am going, let us eat together." And as she saw 

 some with tears in their eyes, she said to them, " Do not weep any. I know 

 that you are my friends, but it is well that I go." After that I was a witness 

 of three dances which were gone through with in the same order as those of the 

 preceding day. There was only tliis difference, that in these the ones who 

 were going to utter the death cry carried a war club in the hand, entirely red- 

 dened, and under the left arm a bundle of linden cords also painted of the same 

 color, and that this time they began with the death dance, which was followed 

 by the war dance, then by the general dance on the square and before the cabin 

 of the deceased. Afterward each one went to repeat the same dances before 

 his cabin. 



In the middle of the third dance there wins seen to arrive from the Flour 

 village, which was also a village of the Natchez, two women borne on the 

 shoulders of two warriors, and followed by their families and their mats. They 

 went at once to dance alone before the temple. Afterward they were received 

 to dance with the others, after which they seated themselves on their mats. 

 However, the guardian of the temple, having lighted a cane torch at the sacred 

 fire, gave it to one of their relations, after which the two warriors took the 

 two women again on their shoulders and, followed by their families, entered 

 the cabin of the dead man and broke a mat which had been placed over 

 the door. One of the two was strangled on this same mat. The other was 

 carried outside on the mat she had brought, where she seated herself with her 

 legs crossed. There she was made to swallow three little pills of tobacco of 

 about an inch in diameter, with some swallows of water, which she drank 

 at intervals. As soon as it was seen that she was going to vomit, her head was 

 covered with a deerskin, and passing a cord around her neck over this skin they 

 began to draw on it with force from each side. However, one of her relations 

 applied a knee to her stomach strongly from in front, while another grasped 

 her in the same way from behind, so that she was stilled rather than strangled. 

 During all that time her family sang. As soon as it was thought that she was 

 dead the one who was to utter the death cry went around her three times, 

 uttered the cry the same number of times, placed his war club six times over 

 the head of the dead woman without touching it, and made the same cry again. 

 Then her body was carried into the cabin of the deceased. I was told that 

 these two women were near relations of this same Taotal. of whom 1 have 

 spoken above, and that they were come to offer themselves thus to death in 

 order to repair his honor and to make him a Noble. I do not know how it was. 

 I know only that he was one of those who did the strangling; that he appeared 

 to draw with very great pleasure, and that since that day I have nol seen him 

 in the village. 



Monday the 4th at S o'clock in the morning we heard some dcatli cries 

 and many shots, which made M. de St. Ililaire think that something new had 



