SIOUAN 

 MOONEY, 



f^r] THE SANTEE OR SERATEE. 79 



all their able-bodied men, leaving only the old people and children at 

 home to await their return, and put out into the Atlantic. Unfortu- 

 nately they were hardly out of sight of laud before a storm (;ame up, 

 which swamped most of their canoes and drowned the occupants, 

 while the survivors were taken up by an English ship and sold as 

 slaves in the West Indies. Aboriginal free trade thus received its 

 death blow in Carolina, and their voyage to England remained a sore 

 toi^ic among the Sewee for a long time thereafter. Lawson describes 

 the remnant as tall, athletic fellows, and excellent canoemen, and inci- 

 dentally mentions that they used mats as sails. Avendaughbough, 

 a deserted village which he found on Sewee bay (p. 24), was probably 

 one of their settlements (Lawson, 14), 



Ouly one later reference to the Sewee is known. It is said that in 

 January, 1715, they numbered 57 souls and occupied a single village 

 CO (?) miles northeast of Charleston (Rivers). The Yamasi war, which 

 began three months later and involved all the tribes of that region, 

 probably put an end to their existence as a separate and distinct tribe. 



The Santee or Seratee lived on Santee river from the Sewee settle- 

 ments up about to the forks. They were a small tribe, even in 1701, 

 although their chief had more desi)Otic power than among other tribes. 

 They had several villages, one small one being called llickerau, known 

 to the traders as "the black house." They Avere a generally hospitable 

 people and friendly to the whites, but were at that time at war with the 

 tribes below them on the coast. They made beautiful feather robes, 

 wove cloths and sashes of hair, and stored their corn in provision houses 

 raised on posts and plastered with clay, after the manner of the Chero- 

 kee and other southern tribes. It is recorded that their chief was an 

 absolute ruler with power of life and death over his tribe, an instance 

 of despotism very rare in that region but probably in accordance with 

 the custom of the Santee, as we learn that his predecessor had been 

 equally unquestioned in his authority and dieaded by all his enemies 

 for his suj^erior prowess. 



Their distinguished dead were buried on the tops of mounds built low 

 or high according to the rank of the deceased, and with a ridge roof 

 supported by poles over the grave to shelter it from the weather. On 

 these poles were hung rattles, feathers, and other ofi'erings from the 

 relations of the dead man. The corpse of an ordinary person was care- 

 fully dressed, wrapped in bark, and exposed on a platform for several 

 days, during which time one of his nearest kinsman, with face blackened 

 in token of grief, stood guard near the sjiot and chanted a mournful 

 eulogy of the dead. The ground about the platform was kept carefully 

 swept, and all the dead man's belongings, gun, bow, and feather robes, 

 were placed near by. As soon as the Hesli had softened it was stripped 

 from the bones and burned, and the bones themselves were cleaned, 

 the skull being wrapped separately in a cloth woven of opossum hair. 



