SWANTON] INDIAN" TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISrtTPPT VALLEY 303 



pie; they are so well treated among us that there are no savages who, liaving 

 been here, have not returned many times." 



He had still another visit from these pertinacious people October 

 17,^ and in March of the following year the Pascagoula chief came 

 in company with the chief of the Mobile and some Choctaw.'^ Peni- 

 caut, the historian, or romancer, of early Louisiana, accompanied 

 some of these expeditions. In speaking- of one of them he gives a 

 short description of the Pascagoula village, which has some value 

 as the only particular account of this tribe that has come down to us. 



Some days after [returning from an exploring expedition to the westward], 

 the savages who had guided us informed M. de Sauvole that they wished to 

 return to their villages, and that they desired that we should go with them. 

 M. de Sauvole made them understand that that would please him. We parted 

 then to the number of ten Frenchmen, with a long boat, and we camped, on 

 leaving our fort, at the mouth of their river, named, like them, Pascagoulas, 

 which is in the bottom of the bay of the same name. We mounted thi& river 20 

 leagues from its entrance into the ocean, and we arrived the third day at their 

 village. As it was toward the end of August and was very warm, all the sav- 

 ages there were bare as the hand, the men and the boys ; the women and the 

 girls had only a little moss, which was passed between their legs and covered 

 their nakedness, they being as to the rest of the body entirely naked. * * * 

 We were very well received by their great chief and all the savages of the vil- 

 lage. They gave us food and drink, among other things bison, bear, and deer 

 flesh, and all sorts of fruit in abundance, such as peaches, plums, watermelons, 

 pumpkins, and all of an exquisite flavor. The pumpkins are much better than 

 in France; they are cooked without water, and the .iuice which comes out of 

 them is like sirup, so sweet is it. In regard to the watermelons, they are almost 

 like those in France. The peaches are better and larger, but the plums are not 

 so good ; there are two kinds, white and refd. They served us also with their 

 hominy (sagamite), which is a kind of porridge made with corn and beans 

 which are like those in France. Their bread is of corn and a grain which comes 

 from the canes. They have plates made of wood and others of earthenware; 

 they are very well made, although by the hand of savages. The women of the 

 savages also make large earthen pots, almost like big kettles, which bold per- 

 haps 40 pints, in which they have their hominy cooked for two or three families. 

 This is the way in which they arrange among themselves in order not to have 

 the trouble of doing the same thing every day, each doing it in his turn for 

 their cabins. These pots are of clay {terre grasse) and of a round shape, almost 

 like windmills. The coverings of the roofs are for the most part of bark of 

 trees ; there are others which are made of leaves which are called in this country 

 latanier, which is a tree peculiar to the country. An observation which I 

 have made regarding savages is that whatever abundance of provisions they 

 have, they never take an excess of it, for they take only as much as they need ; 

 but very inconsistently eating the greater part only with the Angers, although 

 they ha\e spoons made of buffalo horn. Their meat is ordinarily smoked or 

 otherwise bucaned, as they say in that country. They have,- however, a 

 kind of gridiron on which they put it, but very little fire under it, scarcely 

 enough to dry it, the smoke contributing to this as much as the heat of the fire. 

 The chief orders his savages to hold dances in the evening. This dance takes 

 place to the sound of their little drum and their rattle; they dance in a circle 

 to the number of 20 or 30 without grasping each other. The master of the dance 



"Margry, DScouvertes, iv, 454-455, 1880. " Ujid., 456. '^ Ibid., 460, 



