224 BELIEFS AND USAGES OF CHICKASAW (ETH. ANN. 44 
never father, and the term used was restricted to males related 
through his mother. It was he who lectured and advised the way- 
ward. The leading man of the father’s clan was no doubt held in 
high honor, but he would offer no advice regarding children of 
another clan unless especially asked to do so. The following quota- 
tion from Adair shows that correction sometimes went beyond mere 
reproof: 
It ought to be remarked that they are careful of their youth and fail not to 
punish them when they transgress. Anno 1766, I saw an old head man, called the 
Dog-King (from the nature of his office), correct several young persons—some 
for supposed faults and others by way of prevention. He began with a lusty 
young fellow who was charged with being more effeminate than became a 
warrior and with acting contrary to their old religious rites and customs, par- 
ticularly because he lived nearer than any of the rest to an opulent and help- 
less German, by whom they supposed he might have been corrupted. He bas- 
tinadoed the young sinner severely with a thick whip about a foot and a half 
long composed of plaited silk grass and the fibres of the button snake-root 
stalks, tapering to the point, which was secured with a knot. He reasoned 
with him as he corrected him; he told him that he was Chehakse Kanéha-He 
[tcihaksi kania he], literally, “you are as one who is wicked, and almost 
lost.” ... The grey-hair’d corrector said, he entreated him in that manner 
according to ancient custom, through an effect of love, to induce him to shun 
vice, and to imitate the virtues of his illustrious forefathers, which he endeay- 
oured to enumerate largely; when the young sinner had received his supposed 
due he went off seemingly well pleased. 
This Indian correction lessens gradually in its severity according to the age 
of the pupils. While the Dog-King was catechising the little ones, he said Che 
Haksinna [teihaksina], “do not become vicious.” And when they wept, he 
said Che-Abela Awa [tciabila awa], “I shall not kill you.” ™ 
In another place the same writer remarks that in his time children 
who killed the pigs and poultry of the traders were merely given 
“ill names ” by their parents, whereas “the mischievous and thievish 
were formerly sure to be dry-scratched.” * 
Probably the “ Dog-King ” was the maternal uncle of the children 
he was correcting, though the reference to his title indicates a possi- 
bility that he had some more general function. 
In order to make boys strong they gave them herbs and afterwards 
made them plunge into water, no matter what time of the year it 
happened to be. This bath was taken before day each morning and 
was continued through life. They were more careful to take it in 
winter than in summer, and especially on cold frosty mornings, and 
they believed it would help them to withstand cold weather, give 
them health, and enable them to live to a good old age. Adair says 
of this: 
However, they practice it (bathing) as a religious duty, unless in very hot 
weather, which they find by experience to be prejudicial to their health, when 
they observe the law of mercy, rather than that of sacrifice. In the coldest 
° Adair, Hist. Am. Inds., pp. 156-157. % Tbid., p. 413. 
