190 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bdll. 43 



Theloel or Thecoel, and he enumerated the names of nine villages 

 belonging to them and constituting, as he explained, a kind of ex- 

 tended town." These names are given and discussed on pp. 46^7. 

 Disappointed at not finding the great fork in the river told of by 

 Father Zenobius Membre,^ Iberville turned back at this point and 

 regained his ships. 



On the 12th of June following De Montigny and Davion, who had 

 come down from the French settlements higher up to take charge of 

 their missions among the Taensa and the Tunica, respectively, reached 

 the Natchez accompanied by several Canadians and Indians. De 

 Montigny delivered an address to them, explaining the peaceful pur- 

 poses of the representatives of his order. Two days later they reached 

 the Houma, and there learned that a French establishment had been 

 made at Biloxi. The party kept on, therefore, reaching Biloxi July 

 1, and nine days later set out on the return journey to their respective 

 missions. At that time De Montigny attempted to make peace be- 

 tween the Natchez and the Taensa, and he appears to have been suc- 

 cessful, for we hear of no hostilities between the two tribes subse- 

 quent to that date.^ 



In the spring of 1700 De Montigny descended from the Taensa a 

 second time and visited the greater part of the cabins of the Natchez, 

 which he estimated at about 400, lying within a circumference of 8 

 leagues. He baptized 185 infants of from 1 to 4 years old and re- 

 turned to the Taensa three days before the arrival of Iberville on his 

 second expedition, for whom he left a letter.*^ 



As Iberville's account of his visit to the Natchez is the earliest of, 

 any length, it will be well to give it in its entirety, only omitting the 

 references to De Montigny already made. 



The 11th [of March, 1700] I reached the lauding place of the Natchez, which 

 I find to be 18 leagues distant from the Onmas. One league below this 'land- 

 ing place there is an isle three-quarters of a league long. From this isle to 

 the landing place I found many savages who fish for catfish in the river, on a 

 little scaffold extending into the water from 7 to S feet. They sold me very 

 small white fishes and very good catfish a foot and a half long. Having arrived 

 at the landing place, I sent a man to inform the chief of my arrival. The 

 brother of the chief with 20 men came to bring me the calumet of peace, and 

 invited me to go to the village. Two hours after midday I was at this village 

 which is a league from the edge of the water. Half way there I met the chief 

 who came before me accompanied by 20 men very well built. The chief was very 

 sick of a flux, a sicljness of which the savages almost always die. At our meet- 

 ing this chief gave me a little white cross and a pearl which was not at all 

 handsome, and had the same given to the Jesuit father, to my brother, and to 

 the Sieur Duguay. 



" Margry, D^couvertes, iv, 179. 



''This appears in early charts and seems to date from the Do S<it(i narratives (see Trail 

 Maker series, Narratives of De Soto, i, 201). 



Trench. Hist. Coll. La., 16, 227, 1851 ; De Montigny, MS. letter of Aug. 25, 1699. 

 "* Margry, Decouvertes, iv, 411. 



