SWANTON] TNDTAlSr TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 289 



of thoso poor people. The women and girls are more modest than among the 

 neighboring tril)es. May God be pleased to convert them and make the road 

 to their village impracticable for certain French libertines. All that they do 

 for their sick is to suck them until blood comes. I saw one in the hands of the 

 old medicine men ; one whistled and played on a gourd, another sucked, while 

 the third sang the song of the alligator, whose skin served him as a drum. 

 As they are satisfied with their squashes and their corn, of which they have an 

 abundance, they are indolent and hardly ever hunt. They have, nevertheless, 

 the reputation of being warriors and are feared by the neighboring tribes. 

 They are not cruel ; and, far from putting to death any slaves whom they may 

 capture, as soon as the latter enter the village the women weep over them, 

 pity them for having been taken, and afterward treat them better than their 

 own children." When any of their people go out hunting the women begin 

 to weep as if they were about to lose them, and when they return from hunt- 

 ing they weep with joy at seeing them once more. There are very few vil- 

 lages in France where tliere are more hens and cocks than in that of thfe 

 Houmas, because they never kill any and will not even eat any of those that 

 their dogs quite often kill. When one wishes to obtain chickens from them 

 he must not say that he intends to kill or eat them. They would give them 

 with reluctance; but they willingly sell these fowls when they are not killed 

 in their presence, or when they are told that they will be taken away to be 

 reared as with them. The hens have little chickens at all times, and in the 

 month of December there were some in all the cabins, since they keep warm 

 in the cabins, which the people are careful to keep clean, and which they 

 sweep out two or three times a day. The children, the men, and the young 

 men are dressed like the Tounika. Tlie women wear a fringed skirt, which 

 covers them from the waist to below the knees. When they go out of their 

 cabins they wear a robe of muskrat skins or of turkey's feathers. Their 

 faces are tattooed with figures and they wear their hair plaited like the 

 Tounika and Natchez, and blacken their teeth as those tribes do. Although 

 all savages have a great dread of cold, when there is the slightest frost (for 

 there is no winter here) they all bathe, both great and small, and come out of 

 the water quite chilled with cold. An old man calls out at daybreak when it 

 freezes. This kind of bath sometimes brings on a bloody flux, which carries 

 off many of them. However, Father de Limoges is beginning to make himself 

 understood and will do good in this mission.^ 



The ingenuousness of this good father in describing the kind treat- 

 ment accorded prisoners will elicit a smile from one familiar with 

 Indian customs, but he is correct in speaking of their warlike prowess, 

 which, as we shall show presently, they came rightly by. The next 

 event of consequence in their history was the settlement of the Tunica 

 among them and their subsequent massacre of their hosts in 1706. 

 This is La Harpe's account and is probably correct," though Peni- 

 caut, who dates the occurrence in 1709, merely states that the Houma 

 moved farther down the river, while the Tunica came later to take 

 their places.'' The surviving Houma, who appear to have been still 

 a considerable body, settled first on bayou St. John, back of New 



" Evidently a case of adoption. 



6 .Tes. Rel., Lxv^ 145-1.5.3 ; Shea, Early Voy. Miss., 14.3-147. 

 <= Given in full on p. 311 ; La Harpe, Jour. Hist., 100-101, 1831. 

 '' Margry, Decouvertes, \, 483. 



83220— Bull. 43—10 19 



