334 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOT.OGY [bi'll. 43 



tioii regarding burial custonis, though it evidently applies to the 

 rest of the Yazoo tribes as Avell : 



The Ynzonx .-uid the Chacchoninas employ still less ceremony. When their 

 chief is dead they so into the woods to bury him. just as in the case of an ordi- 

 nary man. some on one side, some on the other, the relatives of the deceased 

 accompanying the convoy and bearing in their hands a pine stick lighted like a 

 torch. When the body is in the trench all those taking part throw their lighted 

 torches into it in the same way. after which it is covered with earth. That is 

 wliat the entire ceremony is confined to. It is true that it continues more than 

 six months longer for the relations of the dead and for his friends, who during 

 all tliat time go almost every night to utter howls over the grave, and on ac- 

 count of tlie difference in their cries and voices fiUMu a regular charivai'i. 

 These ceremonies, as I liave said, are common to the chiefs and people. Tlie 

 only difference which marks the first is that at their head is planted a post on 

 which is cut with the point of a knife the figure they have worn painted on the 

 body during life." 



Below is all the specific information Ave possess concerning their 

 religious ideas: 



To this account of my friend I will join this which a savage of the Yazoux 

 said one day to the Abbe Juif, chaplain of the granl establislied 1 league from 

 the village which this nation inhabited. This ecclesiastic having asked of him 

 one day if he had any knowledge of the manner in which his country had been 

 made, as well as the first of his ancestors, the savage replied that regarding 

 the first man he was not able to tell him anything: that in regard to the one 

 who had made all it was the great Spirit. INIinguo-Chitou : that he was goo<l 

 and did harm to no one: that even if a man should be bad he would always 

 pardon him. The chaplain on this rejily thought the occasion favorable for 

 speaking to him of Cod .and making him know that this great Si)irit which 

 was so good, having created all things, had consequently made man, and that 

 the latter, in recognition, ought to pray to him and invoke him. "Well, why 

 pray to him," said the savage, " since he is goodness itself and gives us all 

 that we have need of? The one whom it is necessary to pray to is the little 

 spirit. Minguo-pouscoulou, who is bad, since he can make us die, cause us to 

 be sick, and destroy our goods by storms and temi)ests. It is that one that 

 it is necessary to invoke in order that he do us no harm." ** 



The Tioux 



The most that is known of this tribe is told ns by Du Pratz. In 

 his time (1718-1730) they lived in a small village among the Natchez, 

 who had adopted them, thongh only into the lowest or Stinkard class. 

 " They were," says this author, "' the feeble remnants of the nation 

 of the Thioux, which had been one of the strongest in the country, 

 but the people of Avhich Avere Aery quarrelsome, Avhich Avas the cause, 

 say the other nations, of their defeat and destruction by the Tchica- 

 chas, to whom they Avere never AA'illing to giA'e Avay, until they no 

 longer dared to shoAv themselves, being too feeble to oi)pose the etl'orts 

 of their enemies."'' 



" Dumont, M6m. Hist, sur I.a Louisiaue, i, 246-247. 



" Und., 164-165. 



"■ Du Pratz, Hist, de La Louisiano, u, 223. 



