350 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bdll. 43 



As soon as a boy was born the father dro})ped his own name and 

 took tliat of the child. 



The heads of infants were formerly flattened, as was customary 

 among the Mississippi river tribes. Up to the age of 15 or 16 chil- 

 dren were compelled to run about the fire to make them vigorous, and 

 after that period certain individuals practiced running so assiduously 

 that wonderful stories were told of their swiftness. They trained by 

 eating nothing but raw eggs and drinking only a kind of tea which 

 makes people supple. It is related of one of them that he could 

 defeat a horse within the space of a 5 or 6 acre lot, and made his 

 living by running. 



The chunkey game Avas known to them, and a Avoman's game with 

 pieces of cane, similar to that in vogue among the Natchez; also a 

 ball game, in which the ball had to be thrown through a ring. For 

 musical instruments they used a horn made of cane or reed, a drum, 

 and an alligator skin. The drum was nuide in ancient times by 

 stretching a deerskin over the top of a large clay pot, but later the 

 end of a hollow log took the place of the pot. Alligator skins were 

 prepared by first exposing the alligator to ants until all of the softer 

 parts had been eaten out and then drying the skin. Music was made 

 by scratching this with a stick. 



Every village of any size had a ha! na l-atcV ^ or ' bone house,' occu- 

 pied by an official known as the " blizzard picker " [dc-hd'tcna)^ and 

 as he was continually there, a fire was kept in it night and day. Re- 

 garding the mortuary ceremonies, Gatschet speaks as follows: 



One year after the death of a head chief, or of any of the villase war chiefs, 

 of wlioni there were fonr or five, their bones were due; up by a certain class of 

 uiinistrants called "turkey-buzzard men" {osh hd'tchna), the remaining flesh 

 separated, the bones wrai)ped in a new and checkered mat," and brought to that 

 lodge. The inhumation of these bones took place just before the beginning of 

 the Kut-nUhii ^ worshipping ceremony or dance. The people assembled there, 

 walked six times around a blazing fire, after which the bones were placed in a 

 mound. The widow and the male orphans of the deceased chief had to take 

 part in the ceremonial dance. The burial of the common people was effected in 

 the same way, one year after death; but the inhumation of the bones took place 

 at the village where they had died.^ 



The writer Avas told, however, that after the Imnes had been col- 

 lected by the buzzard-picker they were burned and the ashes placed 

 in a little ol)l()ng covered basket of a type still mani'factured, tied 

 about Avith a cord, and given to the relatives of the deceased. In the 

 same mound Avas placed ;ill the pro})erty of the deceased, or at least 

 such of it as might be |)ari icularly useful to hiu). This is given as the 

 reason for the nonexistence of ancient objects among the surviving 



"The Imrial mat was callpd la'na" ; sometimos baskets were used instead. 



'' I'l'opcrly KirtiijUiin. 



<^ Trans, Antlirop. Soc. Wash., ii, 8, 1883. 



