SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OP THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 167 



All the i)eoii]('s of Louisiana have teujples, which are more or less well cared 

 for acconling to the ability of the nation, and all, as I have said, put their 

 dead in the earth, or in tombs within tht> temples or very near them, or in the 

 neij^liborhood. Many of these nations have only very simple temples, which 

 one would often lake for inivalc cabins. However, when one comes to know 

 he (Hstiii;ruislies tlieni by means of two wooden ]iosts at the door made like 

 boundary posts with a human head, which hold the swiuKing door with a 

 fragment of wood planted in the I'artli at each end, so that the children may not 

 I>e able to open the door and go into the temple to play. In this way the door 

 (•an b(> raised only above these iK)sts, which are at least 3 feet high, and it 

 requires a strong man to lift it. These are the little nations which have these 

 temples that one would confound with cabins. The latter have in truth posts 

 and a similar door, but th(> posts are smooth, and these doors open sideways, 

 because there is no fiagiiicnl of wood at the end. A woman or a child is able 

 to open these doors from the outside or inside, and at night one closes them 

 and fastens them inside to keep the dogs from coming into the cabins. The 

 cal)ins of the Xatchez Suns have, in truth, posts like those of the temples, but 

 their temi»lo was vei'y easy to recognize in accoi'dance with the description I 

 have given nf it. r.csidcs. near these little temples some distinctive marks are 

 always to be seen, which are either small elevations of earth or some little 

 dishes which announce that in this place tliere are bodies interred, or one 

 perceives some raised tombs, if the nation has this custom.'* 



The Mobile, ho\vevcr, in spite of an erroneous impression of 

 Charlevoix, did not luive a true temple, and none was found among 

 the Qiiaj)aw. To the westward the Chitimacha had sacred houses 

 resembling temples in many ways, but nothing of the kind is re- 

 corded among the Atakapa, They may, therefore, be said to have 

 been confined to tril)es on or near the Mississippi from the Yazoo 

 to the (iulf and as far east as Pascagoula river. 



For an understanding of the position of the temple in Xatchez 

 religious life we are almost entirely dependent on the narrative of 

 Le Page du Pratz. His information was obtained from the chief 

 of the guardians of the temple and the great Sun, those undoubtedly 

 best fitted to inform him, and there is no reason to believe that he has 

 willfully misrepresented their statements. At the same time Euro- 

 peans in general knew too little of Indian modes of thought, and 

 Du Pratz himself was bound to be the victim of too many preconcep- 

 tions for us to hope that the account we have received from him is an 

 exact one. However, by tempering his narrative with what our pres- 

 ent information teaches us to expect from Indian sources, we can 

 probably reconstruct a fairly satisfactory outline of Xatchez beliefs. 



The only lengthy attempts to treat of these are by Du Pratz. Be- 

 fore his own work was written he furnished a shorter statement to 

 Dumont, which is as follows: 



They agree that there is a supreme being, auttior of all things, whom they 

 name Coijocop-ChiU. The word Coyocoi) signifies in general a spirit, but that of 

 Chill can not be well rendered in our language. To enable it to be understood 

 I will make use of a comparison. Fire, for example, is called oiia by the sav- 



" Du Pratz, Hist, de La Loulslaue, in, 21-23. 



