326 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



grave. The offering- of corn was also made for four days. On the last 

 of these the people fasted until noon and assembled at the house of 

 the cemetery guardian. Then they plunged into water four times, 

 also for the dead, and after a speech from the guardian, he gave them 

 all a dinner by way of i)ayment. In later times this ended the fast, 

 but anciently the dinner was followed by a dance. 



The following incident, recorded by La Harpe, although its ac- 

 curacy can not be vouched for, at least shows that shamanistic prac- 

 tices similar to those found elsewhere in America were not wantino-. 

 The shaman here referred to belonged to the little Tioux tribe, but it 

 is not probable that native Tunica shamans differed in any important 

 particular. 



The chief of this nation [the Tunica] had at the time a son 15 years old, who 

 had been baptized and instructed in our holy mysteries by M. Davion. A few 

 months after my departure from the Tonicas he fell ill and died between the 

 hands of his pastor and Father Deville, a Jesuit. He made very strong exhor- 

 tations to his father and his family, conjuring them to become Christians and 

 abandon their idolatry. The chief, who loved his son tenderly, who was his eld- 

 est and his heir, promised him to have himself instructed in our religion and 

 to be present uninterruptedly at the prayers of M. Davion. The cure of this 

 young man had been intrusted to a doctor of the Tiou nation ; he claimed, after 

 the death of this child, that if his father had made him a present he would 

 have saved his life. 



The Tonica chief, to whom these sayings were reported, at once ordered this 

 doctor to l)e put to death. Before the execution was carried out he said to 

 Cahura-Joligo [the Tunica chief], in the presence of M. Davion, that he well 

 saw that he was unable to escai)e death, but that to prove to him that he was 

 a great sorcerer after his death the beasts and the birds would respect his 

 body, so that it should not serve them as prey. After this Tiou had been exe- 

 cuted he was thrown outside, and in truth, as he had foretold, the birds and 

 the wild beasts, although in large numbers, did not touch his person at all. I 

 attribute this outcome to the virtue of some simples with which he had 

 rubbed his body, the odor of which was repugnant to the animals.'' 



French writers are authority for the statement that the great chief 

 of the Tunica, when wounded in the second Natchez war, had been 

 cured in an incredibly short time by native doctors, a period which 

 the French physicians had declared entirely too short. ^ But French 

 writers generally had an exaggerated regard for the skill of Indian 

 practitioners. 



At the present day everything connected with shamanism proper 

 has been forgotten, but the herbalist flourished much later, probably 

 down to the present time, and Gatschet obtained several notes regard- 

 ing their method of treating disease, which will be published Avith the 

 linguistic material relating to this tribe. 



" La Harpe in Margry, D^couvertes, vi, 247-248. 

 i'Seo pp. 82-83. 



