220 BELIEFS AND USAGES OF CHICKASAW (PTH. ANN, 44 
While, in its application to young people, this was an old punish- 
ment it is doubtful to what extent it was employed against adult 
offenders until a comparatively late period.” 
Adair expresses a high opinion of this tribe, but Romans, perhaps 
owing to one particularly unhappy experience with them, held them 
in slight esteem. He says: 
The morals of this nation are more corrupt than those of any of their neigh- 
bours; the Choctaws are said to be thieves, but I can assure the reader that 
the Chickasaws are a thousand times more so; I have had ample proof of it by 
losing incomparably more in one day at the Chickasaw town than I did in two 
months going through seventy-four Choctaw towns, notwithstanding I had been 
warned, and was on my guard against the Chickasaws; my razors and a case of 
instruments, and other trifles of no real use to them, besides every horse I had 
with me, vanished in one day among these deceitful people. Their discourse is 
really intolerable, nothing but filth is heard from them.” 
Adair speaks of the nonobservance of the separation of a woman 
during her menstrual periods as a crime on a par with murder and 
adultery. “Should any of the Indian women violate this law of 
purity,” he says, “they would be censured, and suffer for any sudden 
sickness, or death that might happen among the people.” ** 
Adair, again, is the only writer to say anything about oaths used in 
adjuring a witness to give true evidence. The Chickasaw and Choc- 
taw oath he gives as Chicklooska ke-e-w Chua,” which he interprets 
“Do not you lie? Do you not, of a certain truth?” And the answer 
is Aklooska Ke-e-u-que-Ho, “1 do not lie; I do not, of a certain 
truth.” ** Regarding epithets he says, “the sharpest and most last- 
ing affront, the most opprobrious, indelible epithet, with which one 
Indian can possibly brand another, is to call him in public company, 
Hoobuk Waske, Eunuchus, praeputio detecto.” ** 
REGULATIONS REGARDING WOMEN 
Adair has the following to say on this subject : 
. .. They oblige their women in their lunar retreats, to build small huts, at 
as considerable a distance from their dwelling-houses, as they imagine may be 
out of the enemies reach; where, during the space of that period, they are 
obliged to stay at the risque of their lives. Should they be known to violate 
that ancient law, they must answer for every misfortune that befalls any of 
the people, as a certain effect of the divine fire; though the lurking enemy 
sometimes kills them in their religious retirement. Notwithstanding they 
reckon it conveys a most horrid and dangerous pollution to those who touch 
7 See Speck in Jour. Am. Folk-Lore, vol. xx, p. 54. 
80 Romans, Nat. Hist. E. and W. Fla., pp. 61-62. 
81 Adair, Hist. Am. Inds., p. 124. 
= Lushka is a Chickasaw word meaning ‘to lie’’; chiklushko signifies ‘“ you do not 
lie”; ke-e-w (or keyu) is the negative. The form used here is a strengthened one, 
83 Adair, Hist. Am, Inds., p. 51, See also p. 221 following. 
4 Tbid., p. 136. 
