200 BUKEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



would send to him not only the heads of the murderers, but also those of the 

 chiefs who had given the order for It; that he would not be contented with 

 their scalps, but wished their heads, in order to recognize them by their tattoo 

 marks: that he gave them that night to consult among themselves what meas- 

 ures they would take to give him prompt satisfaction, without which it would 

 be necessary to make a resolution grievous for all their nation. He added 

 that they were not ignorant of the influence he had over all of our savage 

 allies; that it was easy for him to make them declare against them and de- 

 stroy their eight villages without risking the life of a Frenchman ; that they 

 ought to remember that in 1704 the Chacchioumas had killed a missionary and 

 three other Frenchmen ; that on their refusal to deliver up the murderers all 

 our allied nations had been let loose against them, who made war on them, 

 so that from 400 families which they had formerly counted they had been 

 reduced in less than two years to SO. 



M. de Bienville also cited to them the example which he made in 1702. He 

 recalled to them that he had had condemned to death a Frenchman for having 

 killed two Pascagoula savages; that in 1703 the Koroa chiefs had made no 

 difficulty in having killed four of their warriors who had murdered a mission- 

 ary and two other Frenchmen ; that that same year he had obliged the Taonacha 

 chiefs to kill two of their people who had murdered a Chickasaw; that 

 the Chacchioumas, in 1715, had a similar satisfaction from the Choctaws who 

 had killed two of their men ; that the Mobilians, in 1707, brought in the head 

 of one of their people who had killed a Taonacha ; that the Pascagoula, in 1707, 

 had killed a Mobilian, and that he had had them render satisfaction to the 

 injured parties, etc. 



The chiefs listened to this discourse with much attention and answered 

 nothing. They strongly resented the disgrace of being in irons with some of 

 their servants. 



The 9th of May at daybreak the three brother chiefs asked to speak to 

 M. de Bienville. They were admitted. They begged him to be informed that 

 there was none in their village who had enough authority to undertake to kill 

 the men whose heads he demanded; that if he would permit it the Tattooed- 

 serpent, as master of the nation, would go to accomplish this dangerous mis- 

 sion. M. de Bienville refused this; and he named in place of the Tattooed- 

 serpent, his younger brother, the little Sun, whom he made part at once in a 

 dugout protected by 12 soldiers and an officer, who brought him to a place two 

 leagues below the village of the Natchez. From this place he went on by land, 

 and our detachment returned the next morning. 



May 10 a dugout arrived in which were two Canadians. Happily they had 

 seen, above Natchez, a parcliment which warned them to beware of the Natchez, 

 without which they would have delivered themselves to them. 



May 12 the Canadian who had left the 27th of April with a savage to go and 

 forewarn the Frenchmen who were descending from the Illinois, arrived with 

 11 P'renchmen whom he liad met 11 leagues above Natchez, without which that 

 troop would have placed itself in the hands of that nation, knowing nolhing 

 of the war. This reenforcement gave so much the more pleasure iuasnnich 

 as they had seven pirogues loaded witli meat and flour, which had begun to 

 fail us. We learned that a Frenchman, with two Illinois Indians, who had 

 separated himself from the voyagers, and who commanded a pirogue, had let 

 himself be captured by the Natchez. 



May 14 the little Sun arrived. He brouglit tliree heads, of which but two 

 were recognized as those which were demanded. M. de Bienville had tlie 

 chiefs come to him and said that he regretted tlie death of an innocent man 

 whom they had killed, and made them throw this head at their feet. They 



