SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 353 



thirst. Dressed in breechcloths, their heads adorned with feathers, 

 ribbons, red paint, and small gourds, the}^ had to dance for six days 

 in the temple, while fasting and without tasting a drop of water, led 

 by their ephoii^ or disciplinarians. No female was allowed to ap- 

 proach, although they had access to the ceremonial dances at the new- 

 moon festivit}^""'^ 



Benjamin Paul was aware of such a ceremony, but could only say 

 that the boys were taken into the temple and made to stay six days 

 with nothing to eat, after which they danced about the fire until they 

 fell down. 



Different from this was the solitary fast and confinement which 

 each boy (and, it is said, each girl also) underwent in order to obtain 

 a personal guardian spirit. Instead of going off into the solitudes 

 the boy or girl is said to have been confined until he dreamed of the 

 animal which was to become his helper. Benjamin Paul stated that 

 his grandmother's hel^Der was a wolf and that the process of obtain- 

 ing such a heliDer was called nacanxme'h or cafnxinec^ which prob- 

 ably signifies "having supernatural power" or something similar. 

 Another high-caste word for worship is nta'tcmii. This ancient re- 

 ligion is said to have lasted until about sixty years ago, Benjamin 

 Paul's great uncle having been the last person to be buried at Co'k- 

 tangi. After that the Indians became Catholics and his grand- 

 mother was the first to be married in the Catholic church at 

 Charenton. 



Some of the Chitimacha personal names collected by the writer 

 have totemic suggestions, but there are others in which it is wanting 

 or obscured. Those recorded are the following: Tdd'xkqta^ 'Blue- 

 bird,'; Cci'mu-me'stln,! 'White flower' (a woman's name); 

 Tcim-ko'nic^ ' Shouts-at-night ' ; Ki'ni^ 'Screech-owl'; So-kaiitcl\ 

 'Three-legged'; WaWi-kS'stmic, ' Pounding-up Ilex cassine\- Cuc- 

 k'd'pn, 'Wood-hauler'; to which the following may be added from 

 Gatschet: Na-lc Mesta\ ' AMiite-goose ' ; Wdms-ca, 'Catfish-mouth'; 

 and Kene' xpC'kakxt^ ' Beads-basket ' (a woman's name). 



Belief in personal spirits practically assumes a belief in the exist- 

 ence of anthropomorphic beings in §.11 kinds of natural objects, and, 

 indeed, Ave could have confidently affirmed as much without the most 

 elementary information regarding the religious ideas of these people. 

 We have, however, much more positive data. Besides the supreme 

 deit3% Ku'tnahin, already referred to, who is also called Nete'xmec, 

 " Governor," and will be considered more at length in connection with 

 the myths, Gatschet learned of three beings, described to him as " the 

 great devil, the little devil, and the last devil," one of whom he sur- 

 mises with probable correctness to have been the Jack o' Lantern. 



« Trans. Anthrop. Soc. Wash., ii, 7, 1883, 

 83220— Bull. 43—10 23 



