316 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[bull. 43 



Charlevoix, who visited the tribe after it had moved to the mouth 

 of Red river, says tliat their houses were partly round and partly 

 square, and states that " the cabin of the chief is very much adorned 

 on the outside for the cabin of a savage. We see on it some figures 

 in relievo which are not so ill done as one expects to find them.''" 



This village, however, had been formerly occupied by the Houma, 

 and it is quite likely that some of the houses had been built by them; 

 the carvings being, perhaps, the same that Gravier noted on the 

 Houma temple. It would appear from a statement of Dumont that 

 circular houses were used more by the Yazoo river tribes and the 

 Arkansas, and square or rectangular ones by the Natchez and the 

 tribes farther down the river. At the present time rude baskets are 

 made, which retain very few traces of aboriginal workmanship. 

 Photographs of these are shown in figure 1. 



Fig. 1. — Modci'u Tunica baskets. 



Of their clothing. La Source says: 



The married women are covered from the waist to tlie knees, and the girls 

 are naked up to tlie age of 12 years, and sometimes until they are married, 

 and they wear clothes which scarcely cover them, being made after the fashion 

 of fringes, which they simply place in front. As for the men, they are dressed 

 in their skins.* 



(iravier says: 



The women have a dress of mulberry cloth which they spin like hemp and 

 flax; it is a strong, thick cloth. Their petticoat is \ ery decent, from the waist 

 to below the knees; there is a fringe very well worked, as is their mantle, either 

 all uniform or worked in lozenges or in squares or in ermine, which they wear 

 usually as a sash, and rarely on the two shoulders. Neither men nor women 

 grease or oil their hair like all our Canadian Indians, but this is perhaps from 

 lack of both [grease and oil], bear and deer meat being very rax'e in their 

 village as well as [the flesh of] all other beasts. The women have a great tress 



"French, Hist. Coll. La., 173-174, 1851. 



" Shea, Earlv Voy. Miss., 80-Sl. 1861. 



