SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 355 



casion some men tied a steamboat to it and cut a limb oiT, after which 

 there was a long spell of rainy weather. 



Sometimes an Indian hears in the forest a noise as if some one were 

 chopping or striking a tree. This is j)roduced by a being with a 

 head like a big ax head. N eha-camon^ ' New Spirit,'" passes from 

 east to west every spring and returns from west to east in the fall. 

 He is described as a red man without a head, and a noise accompanies 

 him as if ten thousand cans were hung about him and rattled against 

 each other. As he goes he says " Hu-u-u-uip^ hu-u-u-xd' f " (a kind of 

 whistling sound), though how this is accomplished by a headless 

 individual is not explained. 



A long time ago a being with a long nose came out of the ocean and 

 began to kill peo^Dle. It would root up trees with its nose to get at 

 persons who had sought refuge in the branches, and people lived on 

 scaifolds to get away from it. It made its home in a piece of wood 

 near Charenton, and when guns were introduced the people went into 

 this wood to kill the monster, but could not find it. When the 

 elej)hant was seen it was thought to be the same creature, and was 

 consequently called N eka-ci' ckami\ ' Long-nosed-spirit.' 



In various places there are holes which can not be fathomed. These 

 are called '' blue holes " and at certain times every year beings or 

 objects called kajjnd'xt, apparently meteors, come along making a 

 rushing sound and go into these holes. There is said to be one of these 

 holes within a hundred yards of the Plaquemine church. 



The earliest, and, so far as the writer is aware, the only account of 

 Chitimacha mythology antedating the work of Doctor Gatschet, was 

 made by Martin Duralde, or by some person from whom he copied, 

 at the beginning of the last century. Two copies of this manuscript 

 are known to have been made. One, which was j)robably that re- 

 tained by the author, was discovered about 1848 among some old 

 papers in the loft of a gentleman's house at or near Opelousas, La. 

 Portions had been destroyed by mice. The remainder was trans- 

 lated by a Mr. W. M. Carpenter, and the translation is now in the pos- 

 session of the Bureau of American Ethnology. The fate of the orig- 

 inal of this copy is unknown. According to a statement contained in 

 the manuscript itself it was " a letter written to Sir William Dunbar 

 respecting some of the curiosities of the country to be communicated 

 to La Societe du Nord." This " vSir William Dunbar " is of course 

 that William Dunbar who settled at Natchez and explored the Black 

 and Washita rivers for the United States Government, while " La 

 Societe du Nord " is probably the American Philosophical Society of 

 Philadelphia. The second copy of the manuscript under considera- 

 tion, which is fortunately complete, is now in the keeping of this 

 society. It is. said to have been obtained from Doctor Sibley, who 

 must have received it from Dunbar, and the linguistic material con- 



