372 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY \ bull. 73 
The marriage of a chief was consummated in a great ceremony, 
to which Le Moyne devotes two of his illustrations ' and the following 
descriptions : 
When a king chooses to take a wife, he directs the tallest and handsomest of the 
daughters of the chief men to be selected. Then a seat is made on two stout poles 
and covered with the skin of some rare sort of animal, while it is set off with a struc- 
ture of boughs, bending over forward so as to shade the head of the sitter. The queen 
elect having been placed on this, four strong men take up the poles and support them 
on their shoulders, each carrying in one hand a forked wooden stick to support the 
pole at halting. Two more walk at the sides, each carrying on a Btaff a round screen 
elegantly made, to protect the queen from the sun's rays. Others go before, blowing 
upon trumpets made of bark, which are smaller above and larger at the farther end 
and having only the two orifices, one at each end. They are hung with small oval 
balls of gold, silver, and brass, for the sake of a finer combination of sounds. Behind 
follow the most beautiful girls that can be found, elegantly decorated with necklaces 
and armlets of pearls, each carrying in her hand a basket full of choice fruits and 
belted below the navel and down to the thighs with the moss of certain trees, to 
cover their nakedness. After them come the bodyguards. 
With this display the queen is brought to the king in a place arranged for the pur- 
pose, where a good-sized platform is built up of round logs, having on either side a 
long bench where the chief men are seated. The king sits on the platform on the 
right-hand side The queen, who is placed on the left, is congratulated by him on 
her accession and told why he chose her for his first wife. She, with a certain modest 
majesty, and holding her fan in her hand, answers with as good a grace as she can. 
Then the young women form a circle without joining hands and with a costume dif- 
fering from the usual one, for their hair is tied at the back of the neck and then left 
to flow over the shoulders and back; and they wear a broad girdle below the navel, 
having in front something like a purse, which hangs down so as to cover their nudity. 
To the rest of this girdle are hung ovals of gold and silver, coming down upon the 
thighs, so as to tinkle when they dance, while at the same time they chant the praises 
of the king and queen. In this dance they all raise and lower their hands together. 2 
Le Challeux says that "each has his own wife, and they protect 
marriage indeed very rigorously," 3 from which it would seem that 
laws similar to those of the Creeks were in force among them. 
Two other sketches of Le Moyne illustrate the ceremonies under- 
gone by widows; and they are thus explained: 
The wives of such as have fallen in war or died by disease are accustomed to get 
together on some day which they find convenient for approaching the chief. They 
come before him with great weeping and outcry, sit down on their heels, hide their 
faces in their hands, and with much clamor and lamentation require of the chief 
vengeance for their dead husbands, the means of living during their widowhood, and 
permission to marry again at the end of the time appointed by law. The chief, sym- 
pathizing with them, assents, and they go home weeping and lamenting, so as to 
show the strength of their love for the deceased. After some days spent in this 
mourning they proceed to the graves of their husbands, carrying the weapons and 
drinking cups of the dead, and there they mourn for them again and perform other 
feminine ceremonies. . . . 
After coming to the graves of their husbands they cut off their hair below the ears 
and scatter it upon the graves, and then cast upon them the weapons and drinking 
i Le Moyne, Narrative, pis. 37, 38. » Gaflarel, Hist. Floride francaise, p. 461. 
2 Ibid., pp. 13-14 (ill.). 
