swANTONl INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MTSSTSSTPPT VALLEY 175 



I( will 1)1' noted, rifrthcnuoiv. thai the iiaiiK's a|)|)Ii('(l to the servants 

 of the Micit Siiii and the siihoi'dinate spirits of the supreme deity 

 were identical. In other words, the Natchez state was a theocracy. 

 The suj)reine hein<r resided in the Sun; the son or near rehitive of 

 the supreme bein^, having come to earth, taught men religious cus- 

 toms, and established their system of government, had retired into 

 or taken the form of a stone, which continued to dwell with them in 

 the innermost sanctnary of their temple; and his descendants rnled 

 in his place, acted as mediators between him and the supreme deity 

 on the one hand and the common jjeople on the other, and were 

 reverenced either as gods or demigods. This stone image represented 

 a higher development of the idea contained in the sacred stone of the 

 Kiowa, the pipe of the Ara|)aho, the arrows of the Cheyenne, and 

 perhaj^s the ''ark " of the Mandan. The sacred fire, while not the 

 holiest object in the tem})le, was next in consequence, owing to its 

 supposedly solar oiigin. and necessarily strengthened counnunica- 

 tions between the deity and his chosen })eoi)le. It was natural, there- 

 fore, that the distinctive badge of the Natchez among the Indian 

 tribes of that region should be the Sun, just as that of the Chakchiou- 

 mas was the crawfish and that of the Bayogoulas the alligator, each 

 of which was pi'obably the tribal totem or the ti'ibal medicine." Could 

 we but bring back the Natchez nation as it once existed in its integ- 

 rity, we should probal)ly find their entire national life, its arts, indus- 

 tries, and the doings of daily life, as well as its religious rites and 

 social organization, woven through and througli Avith solar ideas. 



The mention of a supreme deity at once raises the oft-mooted 

 question in what sen.se this deity was regarded by the Indians them- 

 selves as supreme. There can be no doubt, in view of the theocratic 

 nature of Natchez society, that for them the sky deity was vastly 

 more powerful than all others, but Ave are also told of numbers of 

 lower deities called servants of the Sun, therefore he was not the 

 sole deity. His position Avas evidently thought of as similar to that 

 of the great Sun in the absence of the other Suns. Other deities, 

 as we are in fact informed, were addressed in prayer and were sup- 

 posed to ansAver such prayers, no doubt Avithout consulting their 

 master at all. In case, hoAvcA'er, the master interested himself actiA^ely 

 in any cause his dictate Avould certainly ha\'e been considered final, 

 overriding the Avills of all his inferiors. Besides, the absolute charac- 

 ter of the supreme god of the Natchez, so far as they Avere con- 

 cerned, need not have included a belief on their part that he Avas 

 supreme in the aifairs of other nations. With the broad tolerance 

 usual among primitiA'e i^eoples generally in this respect they alloAved 

 other tribes AvhateA'er deity or deities Avere proper to them, not 



« Dumont, M4m. Hist, sur La Louisiane, i, 184-185. 



