182 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



l^recisely the same race as the orders of Nobles. How could it be 

 otherwise when the Nobles were compelled to marry among them and 

 had Stinkard descendants themselves in three generations? It is 

 true that the speech of the Nobles differed from that of the lower 

 orders, but Du Pratz says " this difference in language exists only in 

 what concerns the persons of the Suns and Nobles in distinction from 

 the people." ° In other words, the differences were rather matters of 

 etiquette than basal divergences in speech. Unfortunately, very few 

 of the examples of differences in speech between people and nobility 

 can be identified with those in later vocabularies, j^et the aspect of 

 neither is at all strange or unlike forms common to the Natchez speech 

 as we know it. Had we better information we should probably find 

 all of the examples resolve themselves into pure Natchez roots. 

 A part of the misunderstanding regarding these etiquette terms has 

 been due to the fact that the language of the Stinkards has been con- 

 founded with what Du Pratz calls " the common language," which 

 was Mobilian, the regional medium of communication. Six or seven 

 of the Avords recorded by French writers and some affixes are among 

 those which show Muskhogean affinities. Nevertheless, as in the case 

 of the English nation, the national speech may have been rather that 

 of the lower classes than that of the Nobles, and a further argument 

 for such a view is contained in the otherwise unique position and 

 organization of this people. However, the former view appears on 

 the whole stronger, since it is supported not only by linguistic con- 

 siderations but by the appearance of those well-known Muskhogean 

 social groupings into war and peace parties, emblematically repre- 

 sented by the respective colors red and white (see pp. Ill, 117). An- 

 other Muskhogean feature, important in the present connection, is the 

 existence of a definite migration tradition pointing to a western origin. 

 This was a sacred possession of the nation, intrusted to the chief of 

 the guardians of the temple, and was passed down by him to his suc- 

 cessor. Du Pratz claims to have heard it from the guardian of his 

 time, and gives it as follows, in the words of his informant : 



" Before we came into this land we lived there under the Sun. [He pointed 

 then with his finger almost toward the southwest, and having consulted my 

 compass and a map, I recognized that he spoke to me of Mexico.^] We lived in 

 a beautiful country where the earth is always good. It is there that our Suns 

 remained, because the ancients of the country were unable to force us out with 

 all their warriors. They came, indeed, as far as the mountains after having 

 reduced under their power the villages of our peojile which were in the i)lains, 

 but our warriors always repulsed them at the entrance of the mountains and 

 they were never able to penetrate there. 



" Our entire nation extended along the great water [the sea] where this great 

 river [the River St. Louis] loses itself. Some of our Suns sent up this river to 



" Du Pratz, Hist, de La Louislane, ii, 324. 



''The Mississippi. The bracketed portions of this story are Du Tratz's own. 



